Vivification
by White.Demon.Feathers
Summary: There are moments in your life that are like standing at the edge of a cliff. You can choose to turn away from the cliff, pretend it isn't there. You can choose to merely stand at the cliff and never choose to do anything about it at all. But, if you're brave enough, you can also choose to jump. This is the story of Ben Solo and Rey of Jakku at the edge of a cliff. ((A Dark T))
1. Chapter 1

There are moments in your life that are like standing at the edge of a cliff. You can choose to turn away from the cliff, shut out the sight of it and pretend it isn't there. You can choose to merely stand at the cliff and never choose to do anything about it at all; let the sight of whatever is beyond, hold you in its grip and keep you from turning away.

But, if you're brave enough, you can also choose to jump.

Ben Solo grips his grandfather's lightsaber so hard it might have cracked slightly. The battle blood in his veins is settling, slowing, aching, like the very same blood that oozes from the wound at his neck. He couldn't feel the pain just yet, but soon it would be a crippling heat that he had felt before and therefore could push through again.

He stands at a cliff once more: the thought of ruling the First Order behind him, the sight of his fallen Master before him, the quiet sound of the woman beyond him. He could turn away from the cliff. He could choose to ignore it. Or…he could jump.

"Ben…" a question, a calling, sweetness and hesitance, all within the soft tremble of her strong voice.

He turns to her, _beautiful_ as the battle blood in her ebbs and flows with her heavy breathing. She's burned on the arm…she must not feel it just yet, like him. But she will, and when she does…

"Ben," the call is stronger. Will he jump?

But he knows the choice is not his to make. He is not the only one on this cliff.

Rey runs to him, pushes and pulls the cloth near his neck away from the bleeding burn there. "Are you alright?" she's speaking quickly now, hands warm and soft against the angry flesh. "Ben, what do I do?" does she not know she has a matching wound on her arm?

His hand twitches before it touches her. Black gloves cover his large hands.

The last time they touched, the last time he had _wanted_ to touch her, to feel her, to know her. He can't do that with gloves.

"Help me." He isn't sure if he says it out loud until she pulls back from his neck to look at his face. But he can't take his gloves off with her in his arms. And he asks again, "Help me."

She doesn't understand until he physically places his hand in hers. She stares at it for only a second before she rips the leather away and discards it without hesitating. She doesn't even look back – what's it like to not look back?

Free, finally free, Ben touches her cheek, wipes away the sweat at her neck, before he pulls her into a tight embrace. Surely he will shatter if he does not hold on to her.

He is not the only one on this cliff. What will he do?

"We need to go," Rey calls softly against his neck, her hot breath burns the wound there but he doesn't care. "We can still help the Resistance."

He doesn't care about the Resistance.

But Rey does. She cares so much. And Ben cares about Rey.

He pulls back and slips _her_ lightsaber into her hand. He summons his own from the farther reaches of the chaos they made _together_.

"I will follow you." He jumped off the cliff.

* * *

Once they make it to the Falcon, Ben almost wishes he had turned away from the cliff. Chewbacca is upset with Rey, snarling at her as he pins Ben to the wall. He's been on the receiving end of Snoke's choke-hold before. This is equal parts worse and yet not even remotely as painful. He still can't breathe either way.

"Let him go! He's with us, now."

No. He's with Rey now. He chose. He jumped. And now he will follow Rey to the darkest depth of whatever lies before him. If that is meeting retribution at Han Solo's dearest friend's hand then so be it.

Another snarl. Another yell. " _Sunshine, how can you forget what he has done?!"_

"He is here. He wants to help." Not particularly, he doesn't. He is here because she cares so much and he must meet his destiny at her side. "Chewie," she puts a both hands on the Wookiee's arm, as if she possessed any strength to stop him. "I said I would bring him back. Doesn't he deserve a chance?"

Wookiees don't believe in forgiveness. Second chances don't bring loved ones back from death. But Ben gasps as Chewbacca pulls away from him. The air is stale and _different_ than on the _Finalizer_ , but Ben is grateful for it regardless.

" _He will be good to you_." It is a threat as much as it is truth. Without another look at him, Chewbacca takes the helm while Rey holds Ben close.

Because of his training he is already recovered by the time she touches his face. And yet it is a great relief to feel her touch him. Her thin fingers glide along his cheek, tracing the scar there probably subconsciously on her part. It's a comfort that surprises him.

His fingers tangle with hers as he brings the back of her hand to his lips.

"He'll come around," she smiles.

It is acceptable if he never does, but Ben won't say that to her. Her _hope_ is a dying breed and Ben will no longer aid in its suffering. If she believes the Wookiee will one day look Ben in the eye again, well, only such a thing could be possible _because_ Rey believed it would be so.

* * *

At the co-pilot's chair, Ben relaxes into the ingrained skill he's perfected of flying. The Falcon is a monstrous beast compared to his ship and secretly Ben mourns his vessel. It had been _his_ , by his own right, not someone else's passed down.

In spite of her weight, she is graceful still in her age; Ben can appreciate _that_ at least. And Rey seems to be enjoying herself as she fires upon the Tie-fighters in their wake.

" _You enjoy Sunshine_."

Ben's small smile flickers and dies at Chewbacca's observation. He was not aware his uncle had deemed him worthy of sight yet. Although not a romantic race by nature, apparently Chewbacca was mindful of Ben enough to know the real reason he defected.

"She is remarkable, yes." What else is he to say? Truth, he will only speak truth when he speaks about Rey. She deserves so much more.

" _You better not hurt her_." There were exactly six versions of the word "hurt" in Chewbacca's tongue. This meant the kind of hurt that was hidden – worse than sorrow or morning. _Heartbroken_ was probably an appropriate synonym. This was Chewbacca giving Ben the equivalent to a father warning a first boyfriend from doing something foolish.

"She deserves better," he has no disillusions about himself, "but she chose me." _He was her cliff_. Just as she was his.

With a nod the Wookiee unmuted their comms to Rey once more.

"There's too many!" she called out after a moment.

Ben held one hand out and closed his eyes, "Keep her steady." And he felt the salt-crystals all around them. Each one pulsed with its own energy, an old and ageless energy that resisted his probing at first, but Ben was no novice to moving rocks. With a surge the salt-crystals behind the Falcon grew and stabbed the enemy, blocking them from the sliver of cavern they were flying in. There were few pilots in the known galaxy that could have outperformed Ben's use of the Force. And not a single such pilot was following them.

Rey's cheers echo through the comms as Ben relaxes and grips the controls with both hands once more. There was a slight growl of awe from Chewbacca but he did not say anything exactly.

"We have to go back and help them!" Rey calls.

The small smile comes back, "Is she always this bossy?"

" _Yes_." There's fondness in his uncle's tone.

* * *

They were having trouble finding the rebels. Rey gripped his shoulder, her short nails barely making a dent in the reinforced fibers of his tunic. "Use the Force, Ben."

"I am, Rey," he was patient, would always try to be patient with her for as long as she would have him. But this was not her first time requesting his assistance and although he _was_ using the Force she still asked this of him.

"There," he called pointing towards a tiny clearing where a vulptex seemed to be watching them as the Falcon curved to follow his direction.

They landed and Rey asked Chewbacca to stick with the controls as she snatched Ben's hand. He dug in his feet and cupped her face as she whirls around. "I will stay here as well."

"I need help!" she gestured to the small mountain of boulders where another vulptex had wriggled its way out of. "You can easily-"

"You can lift a few rocks," he smiled down at her. "But if I am the first thing they see they won't come. Best we keep my presence quiet for now."

She frowned. "I will send Leia to you. She deserves to know."

Honestly, he had hoped she wouldn't do that. And yet, he hoped to deal with the worse of his sins as quickly as possible. Denying the inevitable would do him no favors. If facing his mother's wrath was what following Rey led to, he must face it and not be a coward.

"She deserves more than just that."

With a smile that warmed him all the way to his toes, she proceeded down to meet her own destiny.

 _I'm right here_. He projected through the Force, finding the thread that connected him to Rey. It surprised him to feel it, considering Snoke had boasted _he_ had created the bond between the two of them. Snoke was dead, yet the thread of connection was intact. Did Rey feel it?

 _Thank you_.

Oh. She did.

Ben closed his eyes with Rey and leveled his breathing, projecting the sensation across the thread and _knowing_ she timed her breaths with his. With a gentle nudge he guided her through the process of feeling the Force and manipulating it around the rocks to pull them up and away, defying gravity as if it were a small thing.

Her joy was indescribable as she opened her eyes to witness her feat. That small smile spread minimally as he allowed his pride of her accomplishment flow to her. The noise as a great many people climbed on board had Ben pulling away from the Bond and giving more attention than was strictly required to help Chewbacca pull out of orbit.

" _You are not the man from the star killer_." His uncle didn't use the actual name for the great weapon base. He used the literal words for "star" and "murder" perhaps to dig into Ben his greatest sin just before he had to face his mother's wrath.

Since he deserved nothing less, Ben said nothing.

Then…It's there…and then… _he_ isn't.

 _Luke Skywalker_.

He's gone. It's nothing like Ben envisioned all these years. Over a decade he believed he would be the one to kill the legend. It was one of the main reasons Snoke reached out to him…maybe it was _the_ reason Snoke set his talons into Ben at so young an age.

And now his uncle is…gone. There was a flash of… _peace_ before the blanket of empty space where the man's Force signature once was. Ben hadn't even realized it was there, until it was simply not. It…left Ben hollow. There was a place in the galaxy that once was filled and now is a void…and it isn't _right_. Except for the brief second of peace, perhaps that was his uncle final moment: acceptance. It doesn't feel right, but choosing to die for the rebels was Luke's cliff.

There is a sigh that vibrates the thread of his Force Bond with Rey and he knows she feels Luke's passing as well. She cares so much, hopes so strongly, and attaches herself to people she knows for so brief a time. With care he tests the thread, strokes along it and knows Rey is not distressed. She accepts Luke's passing as well, experiencing the absence of the man in a different way than Ben.

He was not her uncle. He was not one of her sole reasons for living.

But there is reassurance that flows into him, a warmth at the back of his skull that dulls the fire of his wound momentarily.

* * *

An hour rolls by as hyperspace streaked across the viewport. Ben bit his tongue to curb his nerves, causing blood to flood his mouth before clotting. His neck wound was burning fiercely now and he hoped Rey managed to receive care for hers.

Chewbacca does not comment that his mother has not come to see him, to which he has mixed feelings about. Ben preferred the Wookiee's way of handling his anger, lashing out at Ben, striking him and _forcing_ his pain onto Ben's shoulders. That made sense. This waiting game…this was a form of torture Ben was not entirely unaccustomed to but not favorable towards.

Snoke would make him wait sometimes if he disappointed his master.

And he disappointed his mother more than any other living soul.

Another half hour before _finally_ she is there. She fills the small space with her small frame in the way he has only ever seen her accomplish. Formidable, he always thought of his mother, when he was young – a strange word for a child to use but Ben had been a strange child.

The moment stretches; he feels his wound sear him, boil his blood, and his palms begin to sweat. Irrationally he wishes to conjure his mask and gloves. Can she see his shame? Is there blood on his hands? He can't move.

"Mother," the title is ripped from his throat, "I'm sorry."

The hum of the ship and the muted din of the many people talking beyond the door does nothing to quiet the roaring silence that trails his apology. He _knew_ it wouldn't be enough. He doesn't know why he tried with such trivial beginnings.

There had been speeches and eloquence he rehearsed again and again as he waited to see her after so long. But the second she walked through the door, he forgot his plan and instead grovels.

 _She deserves more_.

He falls to his knees and curses his weakness as tears fill his eyes. _This_ is his punishment: a cruel kindness to leave him _begging_ at her feet. The shock of her arms around his neck comes so suddenly he freezes, ceases breathing as a quiet sob shakes his mother's small frame.

"Oh, my son!" she gasps through tears and a closed throat. "My son!"

For a long time they only hold one another. Pain, unlike anything he has ever experienced in his life, flares too bright to tolerate and the brimming tears from before spill silently down his cheeks. Her embrace tightens and for the first time in a _very_ long time Ben breaths. Tension eases and a weariness settles where it leaves.

 _This is home_. _This is forgiveness. This is Light._

They speak. They sit across one another while Chewbacca stands in a corner and tries to be unobtrusive. He tells his mother of murdering his master, fighting with Rey, of plunging head-first after her. He expresses his defection and lays out his terms with no uncertainty: He is here for Rey.

She is not disappointed as he expected. With an accepting countenance, she nods as if this were some battle tactic she had approved of.

Together, like the war-bred, battle tacticians they are, they discuss how to keep Ben alive now. There will be a strong desire for blood now that so many have been lost. But Ben has _everything_. Not just some codesor a few locations on a map; he has _everything_ the resistance needs.

"It won't be easy," Leia confesses, "Ben, they may try to kill you for war crimes."

He allows her to call him whatever she wishes. Rey calls him Ben, too, but she does so without expecting him to suddenly become someone else. His mother calls to him as if calling to the past. And it doesn't settle well with him.

A different punishment than he expected. It isn't wrath he must face. He is the son his mother has now, not the son she wishes for, and every time she looks or speaks to him he will be reminded of the little boy he took from her. It isn't expected, but it is fitting. He deserves this.

"I am indisputably invaluable to the resistance now." There was no pride to his tone, only resigned truth, "Like a weapon or an X-Wing." A ripple shivered through the Bond; Rey had heard his words. She wasn't listening in, offering privacy to the reunion of mother and son, but she had caught maybe his acceptance of his fate.

Leia did not look entirely pleased with his comparison as well, although he noticed she did not refute him.

"I will do what I can." And the way she said it, the slight pinch in her brows, the posture of her shoulders, all of his mother spoke of an equal measure of resignation. She was going to do something she wouldn't like, probably something foolish in exchange for Ben's life.

He wouldn't allow his mother to suffer any more than he has already caused her.

No more can be said between them for now, and Leia knows if she lingers here people might come looking for her, seeking her guidance. Rey said she would stall; explain Luke's passing as reasoning for Leia and Chewbacca to grieve alone. Yet there is still war and Leia must lead.

Ben changes his posture to welcome her close proximity. Fortunately, she reads body language as well as he and she gives him one lasting embrace before departing.

" _Princess is too kind_."

"Yes," he answers Chewbacca, "she is."

" _You will not hurt her a second time_." The words are guttural, forced out almost unwillingly. The word "hurt" is similar to a backstabbing of sorts, literal in Wookiee, but the metaphorical terms apply as well. This is _not_ the second time he has hurt his mother either, but Wookiees don't believe in second chances so for Chewbacca to concede to numbering his betrayals to two seems less daunting than the endless sins Ben must account for.

After all this time his Wookiee has not diminished. He hasn't heard or spoken the language of Han Solo's best friend for about twenty years, and yet there seemed to be no relapse on his end. Perhaps that says much more to his uncle than anything Ben could think to say to him.

Rey slips in hesitantly, afraid she is interrupting something, "Chewy, you can go out and see everyone. I'll fly for a while."

He accepts after a heavy pause. Ben feels the weight of his glare but does not flinch, his eyes only on Rey.

Where his mother dominated the room with her willpower alone, Rey takes his awareness captive. He has no choice but to notice _everything_ about her; it's been that way since he first saw her in the forest.

Alone _at last_ Rey moves close and takes hold of his hands, "Let me look at that burn on your neck."

He accommodates her every move without thought, realizing what he's doing only once she is standing between his knees, cutting away at the loose fabric at his neck he hadn't bother straitening when Rey moved it aside in the throne room. Her hands are warm, gentle, soft, a comfort as she works the bacta patch over the mark. He rubs his patch with one hand, eyeing a matching one on her arm, noting his bisects the scar she gave him, and takes her wrist with his other.

"Thank you," it is easy to thank her even though the words have not passed his lips in years. Another language he thought lost to time only to resurface as if time had no meaning on it.

* * *

Once everyone is safely removed from the Falcon, Leia and Rey accompany Ben to a room with a singular, half-circular table that faces a digital display. The monitor is powered down for now.

Ben holds out his hands to his mother.

"What?" she almost looks insulted.

"Come now, Mother," the title is less stressed. "Let's not presume otherwise: I am a captive until determine I'm no threat to the resistance." Ben's played this game before. He couldn't always be Kylo Ren and could no longer be Ben when he first joined Snoke.

He was forced to become many… _things_. He can play the part of the captive when it suits him, or his mother.

"We don't actually have any force shackles."

"He's not a captive." Rey interrupts. "He came with me. He chose to help the resistance. He's like Finn."

His mother's pointed look is ignored. He will not bruise Rey's fragile hope. He however does _not_ want to be compared to the traitor Stormtrooper. Swallowing his first scathing response he says, "I have done many terrible things your friend has not, Rey." Saying her name out loud soothes him.

She's frowning as Leia straps a set of reinforced shackles to her son. He looks for all intents and purposes the captive he wishes to portray. Willing and unaffected by the restraints, while also appealing to the awaiting audiences' expectations of uncomfortable and bound.

With a small smile he leans forward in a modified embrace with Rey to reassure her. "It is until we can make sure I am not murdered for my past." It is what he deserves, but not before he can do all that he can to nurture Rey's hope of the future.

"Alright," Leia steps back and with her firm voice Ben and Rey do the same as well. "I will call what's left of my Council."

As she leaves Rey steps close once more. "I won't let anyone kill you, Ben." His frozen insides melt at her using his given name. The will behind her words fills him with confidence. She doesn't even realize how powerful she is, how much power she holds over him.

Regardless, Ben knows he doesn't deserve her kindness. She would and should choose her friends, Leia, the resistance over him. He isn't entirely sure she would have chosen to stay if Ben had requested it of her back in the throne room.

The entire galaxy or the small fraction she managed to carve out of it for herself?

Ben knows what he deserves.

* * *

There is uproar and chaos, everything he always thought of the rebel's alliance standing before him now, pointing accusations – some truth, some lies.

The _best pilot_ reminds the Council of seven others of his orders to murder an entire village, his numerous crimes of diving through the heads of captured rebels. Others who know nothing blame him for the creation of _Starkiller_ , the Hosnian System, the death of Luke Skywalker, the Jedi temple, and a hundred other things.

He stands before them silently.

This anger, this chaos, this _mob_ : this is what he deserves. They will burn him a scapegoat. He will die publicly for crimes against the entire First Order.

Almost an hour of this useless prattle and he has said nothing. Rey tried to come to his defense every chance she got, but she was talked over and ignored. She was a child to these warlords, ignorant and stupid some were thinking. Ben wanted to hurt the generals who thought such things, but Force-choking someone would break the illusion he created and not help the situation at all.

It wasn't until she looked at him with genuine fear in her eyes and in her mind, a strumming of the thread connecting them that vibrated down his spine and settled sickly in his gut.

He would do anything for Rey.

"Warlords, please," his deep voice cut through the screaming and chilled the heat of the mob. "While uninformed, on several accounts you are not entirely wrong. My sins are great. I have done many terrible things.

"Some because I was told to. Some because it was expected of me in the position I was in. Each and every one was a choice, just as coming to you now is my choice. Rey," he gestures to her because she deserves to be recognized, "has brought me here to atone for my sins. She believes there is still light in me, and I hope her belief is enough."

Ben knew all there was to know about his enemy. Words like _hope_ and _belief_ and _light_ were what their foundation was built on. Rebels with hope; what were they without their hope and lightside?

Fanatics, Ben thought.

He sees his words, the right words though they are for his enemy are nothing less than the truth, take root in only two of the warlords. They physically pull back from the table, withdrawing from the cacophony that erupts afterwards.

"So murder was just in the job description?" Dameron snarls. It is as if he is dealing with a den of irritated dragons. Do they not _listen_?

"Poe!" Rey tries once more but she is submerged in the noise.

His mother does nothing, as she has done throughout the meeting. He knows she is waiting to make her move, her checkmate. But he won't allow his mother to become a martyr for him.

"I am here to bargain my life." Again his voice silences the roaring men and women of the council. "I have codes and plans, schedules and routes, allies and enemies, I know the names of every single officer on the _Finalizer_ , and every general assigned to every dreadnaught in the fleet." He paused for dramatic effect, a Skywalker through-and-through. "I also know everything there is to know about the man who now leads the First Order: General Armitage Hux."

The silence is deafening. Leaning slightly back, Ben allows one moment of smug pride to fill him. Let it not be said that when he set his mind to something, Ben takes what he wants. It would be foolishness and a death sentence to kill him now. It would be a waste of a valuable resource. Glancing at his mother he sees her face white as the sand on Crait. She had planned to negotiate her spot as General of the Resistance to save her son's life.

Instead he shackled himself to her rebels willingly.

Well…willingly _enough_.

"I do, however, have a few conditions that must be met." There is a moment of outrage before Ben speaks over them again. "I will be given actual accommodations, if available. General Organa will meet with me privately twice a week, steadily increasing after a trial period of course. I understand you must need time to trust me. Lastly," his eyes flick to Rey, "You will leave me in the care of the last Jedi."

"Absolutely not!" Dameron knocks his chair back.

"Commander!" Leia snaps, and chastises him immediately. He has the gall to look embarrassed but remains standing, breathing hard. "These are not unreasonable requests."

"He means to be alone with you! He will attack Rey the second her back is turned."

Ben knows his enemy. He knows he's won as soon as Poe Dameron insulted the strongest women he's ever known. Without smiling too obviously, Ben takes his delight in watching his mother and Rey set him straight.

"I am not _stupid_." Rey begins and he _relishes_ her defense. "I am not a child, nor am I weak and frail, Poe. I can handle myself, as I have proven again and again. I offered Ben another way and he took it. He is here to fight for the Resistance! He is here to do the right thing! And he is a powerful Force-user." Her eyes flash dangerously before she turns to Leia, "I accept this request."

No one speaks; perhaps they've never had the pleasure of witnessing Rey at her most passionate peak. Ben sends his pride streaming through the Bond and sees Rey visibly straighten to her full height.

Leia stands with a curt nod to the woman. "Ben is _not_ a prisoner of war." There is a mild grumble about that. "He defected and joined _us_. Did we put Finn on trial for the sins of _all_ Stormtroopers when he came to us?" He wishes she hadn't compared the two of them but seeing as she is winning her warlords over, Ben keeps his mouth shut.

"These requests are simple. I allow them. Those in favor?"

There is the consensus of more for than against and Ben remembers the names and faces of those that voted with his mother. Poe Dameron had not been one of those five.

Then the _real_ work begins. Ben gives up the First Order. It is hours and hours of cross examination. Base locations, codes, and his personal favorite: _numbers_.

Oh! Ben had been a strange child indeed. Favorite subjects of study were arithmetic, science, and _history_. Oh! Had he loved history. He learned to enjoy other subjects such as literature, calligraphy, and politics. But arithmetic, science and history started it all.

He was a genius with numbers, no matter the format. Equations or dates – it didn't matter. If he could quantify it, Ben loved it and remembered it. It was a special gift, before the Force, bestowed upon his mind to recall numeric facts with ease.

Now, Ben applied his gift as a turncoat pet of the Resistance.

He divulged manning, hours of operation, equipment logistics, anything and everything he could remember of each base location he gave up willingly and without a shred of remorse.

All that Ben took issue with was when his opinions were shot down swiftly and viciously. When a name managed to make it through his facts, he could recall the personality and mindset of such officers. And when Ben provided the best means to deal with specific officers based on the knowledge he possessed firsthand, it was ignored.

"Keep your opinions to yourself, Knight of Ren," one of the warlords who voted against him spat. "We'll ask for it if we want it."

If there was one thing Ben couldn't stand it was ignorance.

"I'm telling you the best course of action to take." He countered.

"We do not answer to you," one of the warlords who _had_ voted for him bit back.

"These are facts and you are blatantly discounting them."

"Enough! _Knight_!" the title was sneered pass Dameron's – _Commander Dameron's_ – lips.

"When your raid fails because you chose to ignore my intel, _do not blame me_." He knows he shouldn't have threatened them, but ignorance was simply a fancy word for stupidity. Ben was not stupid.

"Ben," Rey called him and it immediately soaked his pride away. He was here for _her_. Fighting stupid people was not going to help Rey.

Unfortunately at the same time the last warlord who had voted against him, a one General Teek, screamed, "Take him away until we have use for him again."

Ben followed Dameron who seemed only too pleased with the prospect of escorting him to his new living arrangements.

"You understand that your stipulation was you could have your own _accommodations_ so long as they were available?"

Oh. So that's how he was going to play it. "I remember what I said."

"Well, because you've arrived with the rest of us and it's a struggle getting even the General rooms, you'll understand that, for now at the very least, you will be put in the brig until such accommodations may turn up."

"Poe!" Rey snapped in fury, his beautiful, vengeful angel.

"It wasn't my decision entirely," but he had some _small_ part in it, "but you know this will be the best place for him for now. He is _Kylo Ren_ , Rey. There's probably a price on his head the moment people knew he was here."

"I _vouch_ for him! Does that mean nothing?"

The silence hurts. His poor girl, she believed her friends, the friends she would give him up for if he were to make her choose, would have sided with her because of that bond. He wished to reach out to her, touch her, comfort her in any way. Instead he sends his gratefulness to her through their Bond. She offers him a small smile before she glares at Poe again.

"Ben is my responsibility. If _anything_ happens it's on me."

"What? Rey!"

"No, Poe. I promised Ben the chance to redeem himself. He _chose_ to fight for the Resistance. This," she gestures wildly and Ben isn't sure if he or the pilot know what the gesture indicates, "is all my fault."

Fault is a pretty harsh word; Ben knows she means more like if something were to happen to him she would blame herself for it. Dameron, if he as good a friend as she believes him to be, may one day get it through his thick skull, too.


	2. Chapter 2

**-So here is Chapter 2; dedicated to my first review from** Hellyjellybean **.**

* * *

In his new living arrangements, Ben finally rests. He's been running on _fumes_ , Han Solo use to say. It's appropriate even if the memory stabs him deep. This is his penance; Han Solo will haunt him the way no Force ghost ever will.

Speaking of…Luke is dead. Ben waits for the gloating. The I-told-you-so between bars would be fitting of the old man. Only Ben hasn't seen him, hasn't felt him since that burst of peace before nothing. Of course Ben wouldn't be Luke's first stop after death anyway.

Hours of quiet contemplation do nothing to send Ben to sleep. He knows he needs rest; his body will heal faster – as past experiences have proven – but he can't seem to seize the concept. It isn't the new location or the swarm of snakes that want him dead; both situations have never unnerved him as he is right now.

When the sudden, split-second buzz of the world muting deprives him of all his senses but _Rey_ , Ben knows what he needs.

"Oh!" she exclaims abruptly, standing inside his jail in an oversized tunic that nearly swallows her whole. "Ben!" it's almost indignant.

It brings the small smile solely reserved for her to the surface.

"I thought – I didn't know – What are you –"

She can't seem to pick a thought. His smile grows. "This is _our_ Bond. Perhaps Snoke did something to it, but it is _ours_." The fierce possessive tone is not missed. "You've felt it all day, haven't you?"

"Yes," and finally she settles, her nerves soothed as she steps closer to him. Her hands flutter near his neck, checking the wound now with sure movements. His First Order uniform is dirty and wrinkled and torn but he was not provided other arrangements and if he had been he wouldn't give up the few things that were his now. He already had to relinquish his lightsaber to his mother as a show of good faith to her Council.

Rey can see the scar forming, raised and scabbing, bisecting the thinner scar of her making.

With her so close, Ben sees her own scar looking no worse than his own on her arm. An ache passes through him as he wishes suddenly to be able to _heal_.

But the thought is gone in a flash, a talent he will never be worthy of.

"I'm so sorry, Ben."

"Sorry?" He cannot fathom what she has to apologize for.

But Rey shakes her head as if reading his thoughts, "I asked you to come with me and look where you are. Locked in prison, confessing secrets, cold, uncomfortable." She shakes her head again.

Ben takes her hand and brings her closer, placing her between his knees as he holds both her hands tightly. "Rey, this is where I'm meant to be." With a chuckle he remarks, "I could always break out and stay with _you_ if it becomes too much."

"Ben!" she giggles, a sweet sound he's never heard before. Oh! How he cannot wait to hear more secret sounds from her!

They hold each other a few minutes longer until Rey steps back reluctantly. "I don't want to suddenly disappear and lose you. It'll be better if I pretend I'm leaving by choice."

Her words dislodge another chuckle. "Then I will bid you goodnight, Rey. Sleep well."

"Goodnight, Ben." Her smile is soft and it is the last thing he sees as the Bond relents and he is once again alone in his cell.

This time, when he lays down sleep comes to him easily.

* * *

He wakes before he is fifty yards away. A disturbance in the Force shivers through his dreamless sleep and Ben is suddenly, utterly awake. And he knows he is coming.

Poe Dameron.

"Commander," he greets, unnerving the pilot with his sharp eyes. No doubt there is some surveillance monitoring him somewhere and how this man thought to catch him unawares. The title brings Dameron up short.

"Kylo Ren," he sneers through the bars. "You are going to pay for the crimes you've committed. You may have the generals fooled, have your mommy wrapped around your finger, but I know who you are."

 _Well, goodie for you_. Ben keeps his inner thoughts quiet and sighs out loud. How troublesome. He thought this scenario could have been avoided – one reason he had ask for his own room – once he had the warlords understand his worth. But here Poe Dameron is, hidden by the cover of darkness, to take him out in the middle of the night.

Ben understands this, though. He knows pain, _intimately_.

His eyes hold Dameron's for nearly a minute. He is important to Rey. Even though he did and said things she doesn't agree with, Ben could still feel her affection for the Best Pilot. Even though here he was, going against her word that Ben not be harmed. And there is that little detail that he wasn't going to kill anyone anymore.

"Will it make you feel better?" it is a mild irritant to keep his sarcasm in check. He holds no such affection for this man.

And he _knows_. The air shifts and Dameron's surface thoughts project loudly across the Force to Ben. He believes hurting Ben will make him feel better about what Ben did to him on the _Finalizer_.

 _Fine_.

He knows pain. If his penance is to endure whatever Dameron can dish out, Ben knows he will survive it.

"Very well," he swings his hand as if swatting at a fly and the door to his cell is released and swings invitingly open. Ben stands before the Best Pilot of the Resistance and _waits._ His brief moment of terror humors him and he allows a grin to goad the man into judgement.

It takes no further prodding as Dameron rushes forward and gets a solid hit to Ben's face. Ben moves with the punch, absorbing the ache that blooms in his jaw before he straightens again.

He will face this punishment the way he has faced every punishment he's ever received, with dutiful grace. He does not cry out at the second punch to his cheek, the third to his abdomen, the fourth, fifth, and sixth blows to his ribs. Silently his allows Dameron to beat him senseless without fighting back.

Again and again and again, kicking and punching and scratching and still Ben says nothing, does nothing. All he can do is meet Dameron's eyes and wait for his appeasement. It is as if the Dark Side managed to pass through this man and possesses him. A ragged breath rakes through the rebel as he shoves his hair out of his sweaty face.

The air is thick with danger. Ben knows what will happen if this continues. Poe will go too far; Ben will suffer then he will die. Rey will weep.

"Are you appeased?" Ben snarls the words past the blood in his mouth.

Poe looks at him with something wild for one second. Perhaps at another time, Ben would have called it awe but it was more like disgust. Finally he takes a shuddering breath and as he lets it out the Dark Side seems to go with it and his shoulders snag. "Yeah."

He needs nothing else. "Then if you don't mind, I was trying to sleep. I have a long day tomorrow cataloging intel for your Resistance."

Poe's eyes are wide as he slowly walks out the barred door before it closes and locks behind him with another lazy wave of Ben's hand.

With hard eyes he throws over his shoulder, "We're square." Dameron seems to desperately want Ben to not notice his quiet fear as he forces himself to _walk_ away.

* * *

" _You fell_?" His mother glowers at him while Rey fidgets nearby with a nasty frown creasing her eyebrows.

"For the eleventh time now, Mother, I _fell_." He's good with numbers.

Rey scoffs and it forces one of his mother's eyebrows to arch skeptically. Standing before these two powerful women, and the rest of the Council, Ben is pointedly _not_ making eye contact with _anyone_ in the room. He cannot lie to Rey directly. He managed to stall her, saying he would explain himself later when she came to escort him to the Council room. To his mother, he knows she cannot read his tells with so much time and distance separating them.

He does wish he had thought of a better lie to tell.

This is not a lie for Dameron. The embarrassed Commander pointedly does not look at him either. No, this is for Rey. He does not know how he will keep her friend's actions from hurting her, only that somehow he will. He received due punishment for mindsweeping Dameron after Jakku. He deserved the beating; he deserves a thousand beatings.

Black eyes, stitches, a cut lip and a cut along the bridge of his nose, two broken and three fractured ribs, a bruised kidney, two broken fingers, all of it is his burden to bear. Ben has no disillusions about more floggings, they will come and eventually the rebel scum will be appeased. Until that time Ben will protect Rey.

After a long awkward silence once the medic leaves, General Teek clears his throat, "Perhaps we can proceed?" he draws his vowels out and Ben ignores him. He knows men like Teek; there are _always_ men like Teek. They think they're better than everyone else in the room; like humanity _owes_ them something for being born. Hux was like Teek in some ways.

In a moment of madness, Ben concedes that at least Hux clawed his way to his position with a certain amount of skill. Dubious skill; murder and lies and the usual fair, but skill nonetheless. A charisma that entrances a mob to follow him, an unshakable belief in the organization he follows, the heritage and background to inspires others to let him lead; skill he does not recognize in this older man before him.

His mother distracts him from falling further into madness and thinking about Hux in general by beginning their first strategy debate. A specialized few spent last night analyzing the first burst of information Ben offered with the rebel's current data and configuring possible scenarios to attack a section of First Order fleet.

They choose a small and forgotten section. Ties and a slightly outdated dreadnaught loom over an Outer Rim planet as they harvest ore from the mines.

Ben wouldn't have started there; the ore isn't particularly necessary nor valuable. It had been Commander Crossix, one of those who had voted against Ben, who had suggested hitting this part of the fleet to judge how forthcoming Ben's word really was.

Ben believes they are playing their hand too quickly. Best to strike the top-tiered dreadnaughts first; cripple the beast by hitting valuable spots. This is merely knocking a wild animal around to see what it'll do next.

The _Conqueror_ is their smallest and weakest dreadnaught, thus why it is posted so far out. General Munin is a new officer, appointed because her aunt had been a formidable officer of the First Order – retired now – but also because she ranked third in her commissioned class. She is hardly seasoned in war, and if killed in action no one would raise the flag to avenge her. Ben had never met the woman himself, but he already mourns her. She shouldn't die merely to _test a theory._

He expresses his opinions. He's ignored by most.

Rey tries to interject. She's ignored by most.

Only Dameron acknowledges Rey protests with faulty logic that their greater votes seem to lean towards issuing a useless mission. That's the problem with Democracy, Ben thinks sagely, if the louder party is wrong then _everyone_ will be wrong.

"We will send out the teams as soon as possible," Leia does not look concerned. Of course, she never thinks her democracy would fail her. "In the meantime, Ben, I would like for you to provide a detailed biography of General Armitage Hux – show us what we're dealing with."

Before he can confirm her request General Teek interrupts, "Whenever you are not in this room, giving us everything you have on the First Order, you will be confined to your cell."

Rey physically steps between Ben and the Council. "You decided to put Ben in my custody." She stands tall and firm and no one makes eye contact with her. Oh, the irony; they are _afraid_ of Rey but not so afraid of him. "I will be taking him to train with me."

He isn't the only one that notes she did not specify where or what that training entailed. All he cares about is that this will be the first time they will be alone since their flee from the Throne Room. And Ben's reasoning for leaving behind all he's ever known, all he thought he ever wanted, is once more solidified. He will follow Rey.

* * *

Ben stares at Rey dumbfounded. He doesn't think he heard her right, doesn't think he can see what he's really seeing.

"You stole those." The words are released but he isn't even sure he's said them.

Blushing and frowning, a little huff in her tone she grumbles, "I didn't steal anything. I was _told_ to take them."

"Luke wouldn't have parted with his precious books." _Force_ , he sounds like a hypocrite. The little child that wouldn't go out and play, wasn't interested in pod racing, couldn't be bothered with doing _normal kid stuff_ (his father would complain quietly to his mother); he chose to stay inside and read and study. Here he is, complaining about Luke and his old Jedi texts.

Rey blushes hard, "I told you: he told me to take them."

"And Luke wouldn't say that."

" _He_ didn't."

"Then who are you talking about?"

She clutches the old book closer to her chest protectively. "I…" and her bright eyes meet his for one brief moment before she nearly turns away from him. "I don't know. There was a voice, a man's voice. He told me to take the books."

As much as he wants to know more, Rey's unease screams through the little thread connecting them. So Ben reigns in his temperament and takes a deep breath.

"Well, what do you plan to do with them?"

Her nerves calm slightly at the slight change in tone of topic. "I thought we could study them. Together!"

The odious response is poised but he swallows it forcibly. He's _already_ studied them. He had been with Luke for near six years; there was plenty of time to study ancient texts and Ben had always been an erudite child.

But her _hope_ …the wide-eyed curiosity and nigh child-like _joy_ of discovery is sweet like honey on his tongue as he bits it. She _wants_ to learn with Ben and there's a single, quiet moment that envelopes Ben's mind for one heartbeat. He remembers the sudden flash of desire to _teach_ this girl. It had consumed him in one breath, all his thoughts, all his senses _needing_ to take this young, force-sensitive girl and make her his apprentice.

Memory serves, she had not responded kindly to his request.

 _Demand, more like_ , she pushes across their Bond. He snickers at the indigent tone in his mind.

Alone in their little clearing, surrounded by sunshine and green grass and thin, white trees with their dark green and purple leaves, he takes another breath to center himself. There is the sudden, sharp _wail_ of the chubby birds Rey calls porgs that breaks the silence but she seems enchanted more so than irritated by the creatures.

"Very well, Rey. Where would you like to begin?"

And they learn _together_ for _hours_. He has to help her with the written language because she barely knows written Basic, let-alone this ancient dead-language. Good thing, too, his pronunciation is probably terrible. But she always asks and he enjoys the way they sit close and hover over the pages of old knowledge.

This book doesn't teach anything of much physical use, but it provides and elaborates philosophy of the first force-sensitives and a basic law and a few oaths they swore on blood – as elaborate as philosophy can be. Rey, never a scholar in her life, takes the theories and rituals and laws and questions them with wonder and faith and desire and he can't help but fall contagious to all of her.

He sees the First Laws of Jedi with new eyes, not the studious eyes of Ben Solo: Nephew of Luke Skywalker. He doesn't even sneer with the superior intellect of Kylo Ren: Master of the Knights of Ren. No. He reads the text now with a new sense of admiration of how these men and women governed themselves and reasoned the Force around them. He realizes with gaping awe the apparent _lack_ of Dark and Light. To the earliest recorded Force-sensitives, it was merely a way of life – almost like a God in their lives, pushing and pulling, applying guidance where it was most needed. The Force was almost _alive_ and _cognitive_ to them.

Who is Ben to sneer and separate himself from these men and women? Aren't they all the same? The Force hasn't changed, has it, in the millennia since this text was first written?

Overwhelmed with his own thoughts Ben pulls away from his hunched position over the book, his back popping as he stretches.

Rey giggles as she brushes stray leaves from his hair. Her nimble fingers catch a bruise and he doesn't flinch because he's been trained to _never_ show pain, but Rey's smile falls regardless.

"Will you tell me what really happened?"

He cannot lie to her. "Only if you ask it of me."

She doesn't take the warning. "What really happened, Ben?"

"Someone did not think I had been punished in balance to my crimes and sought out their own justice."

She gasps, "Why didn't you say something?"

"Because they deserve retribution for what I've done, what the First Order has done." At her beginnings of a protest he silences her by pressing his forehead to hers. "I can handle pain, Rey. It means nothing."

"Nothing!" Her indigent cry forces him to wince and she pulls out of his loose embrace. Already he misses touching her. "How can you say that? The Council voted. You're helping the Resistance, now. You're atoning for what you've done. This," she lightly traces the cut along the bridge of his nose, trailing over the bruise that covers the left side of his face – Poe's handiwork. "This," her voice breaks. "This isn't fair."

Oh, his sweet, innocent girl. Nothing is fair. Fair was a construct people created to make themselves feel better when things didn't go the way they wanted them to. If life were fair, children would be loved, no one would be enslaved to their fellow man, there would be no wars. No. All that Ben believed to be true was what people _deserved_ based on the choices they made.

And Ben knew what he deserved.

He takes her wrist, holding it close. _Force_ , what a blessing it is to freely touch her! "Rey, it's fine. He got it out of their system. He won't do it again."

Brows bent inward she lets out a little hiss. " _One person_ did this to you? And…you didn't…hurt them?" It isn't quite an accusation. If he had hurt Commander Poe Dameron, Best Pilot of the Resistance, the entire base would have been in an uproar.

Offering her the small smile reserved for her alone, Ben is only too pleased to answer this question. "I didn't raise my hand nor the Force against your Resistance."

Her frown doesn't clear with his confession and the warm feeling of giving her all that she asks of him chills slightly with her next inquiry. "What aren't you telling me?"

He cannot lie to her. "What makes you think that?" How long can he delay the inevitable?

"The Bond." And she leans closer, her body pressed close, so close. He hasn't indulged or sought out human contact in so long…so very long…and now he craves Rey in a way he never has with any other being. "It strums with…something – I can't describe it, but I know…you're not lying. But it feels like you are."

 _A lie of omission is still a lie._ Apparently Ben should know better than to delay his curious girl. He _cannot_ lie to her.

With a gentle stroke, he pushes her lose hair from her face. "Don't be upset…"

* * *

Perhaps he should rethink his decision to never lie to Rey.

She is a snarling, wild beast as she screams at the man. At least they are somewhere secluded from the others and so reputation can remain intact if Rey allows it.

"She is formidable," Ben does not apologize.

Poe laughs nervously as he eyes Rey with his back pressed to the wall. "That I know it."

"Don't," she turns and snaps at Ben and he can't possible understand _why_ she is snapping at _him_. "Don't talk about me like I'm not here."

"Rey, I'm sorry," Poe tries again but she only whirls like a gale.

"You shouldn't be apologizing to _me_!"

Oh…She can't possibly…Ben looks away as his chest constricts. It doesn't matter – Poe had been violated; mindswept. He took his justice. He was appeased. Ben does not need anything from this man. Rey cannot mean for Poe to do anything-

"Ky-" he chokes on Rey's glare, "uh, Ben. I'm sorry about what happened last night. I should be proving to you how different we are from the First Order, not attacking a _defenseless_ man in the middle of the night." There is only the slight emphasis on that one word, proving Poe did not believe for a second Ben was defenseless.

Regardless, Ben _really_ doesn't know what to do with that apology. No one has ever apologized to him. When things went wrong in the First Order, no one had to answer to Kylo Ren. No one but his Knights and they had been conditioned, same as him, to never apologize for anything. Action mattered, not words.

Ben nods at the commander but it does not appease he little whirlwind. She forces them to shake hands and only then does she release Poe. "I'll let you know when I stop being mad at you." For some reason he thinks Poe will laugh off his girl's anger, just as he sometimes does in the war room. But now he appears thoroughly chastised and limps off to lick his wounds.

Once they are alone, Ben takes her hand and presses it to the bruises again. "Thank you." Every day, he vows; he will thank her every day for as many as she will give him.

* * *

The days blur in a repetition Ben appreciates. There is solace in schedules, in mediocrity. He sleeps in his cell and in the morning he works with his mother's warlords – generals, the Resistance calls them generals (even though not all of them _are_ generals). After they bleed him dry of all he can give them that day he spends his afternoons with Rey. They thread through the Force with a slow method that Rey does _not_ appreciate, but she listens and she does enjoy learning so much. They've finally made it through the first book. In the evenings his mother will join him for supper. The first time was in his cell, since then she's demanded their dinners be met in her private quarters.

Meeting with his mother had been a self-induced punishment. She deserves more, and this is all his can give her. Regardless, she seems so happy to see him each time. It's only been the two that are allowed right now, but they've managed to discuss topics that do not upset either party. She knows now not to bring up his childhood, the last night he saw Uncle Luke (and that is a name that stabs each time it's used, too), and she avoids all sub-topics pertaining to his training with Snoke as well.

He doesn't bring up Han Solo, or Luke at all. Unless they speak of times before his birth – then it feels like he's learning of the great heroes from a history text. Somehow he's managed to separate the men he knew and the men his mother met so long ago.

There are still strained, awkward silences. But they are learning each other once more. And it doesn't always hurt every time his mother reaches out and touches him.

He is told soon he will have those accommodations he asked for. Rey made sure they were near her own living rooms. The protective gesture warms his bones.

That's another safe topic: Rey. They always talk about Rey. Ben cannot get enough of talking and hearing about his strong, caring girl.

During their last dinner, Leia asked if Rey could join them. Perhaps it isn't such a terrible idea. Rey would be able to mend the silences in ways the two of them cannot yet. At the same time, Ben is apprehensive of inviting Rey into the space he's carved out for his mother. He doesn't know why he's nervous only that he is.

Nerves do not win against logic.

When he is otherwise not occupied with playing the turncoat pet, learning with and teaching Rey of the Force, or sitting with his mother, Ben has been ordered to write reports of all the things he has yet to bring to the warlords' – generals' – attention.

After only a little over a week since the Resistance piled onto the Falcon, their first mission based off Ben's intel is a go. He still does not agree with the Council. Wasting resources and the element of surprise on such small prey benefits no one. It tips the Resistance's hand and will provide the First Order the proof of Ben's allegiance.

He has voiced his _concerns_ several times, always met with ignorance. Their precious democracy has voted. His mother listens but she has her faith in the wrong system. Rey tries but she doesn't understand politics the way his mother and the other generals do. They are lucky they are respectful in their reproach of Rey.

He promised not to kill anyone. But surely there are extenuating circumstances that will permit him to do so, right? Keeping his questions to himself, Ben waits for such extenuating circumstances to tell him otherwise.

Now he watches the pilots take off as the Resistance horde cheers them on.

It is such a waste.

He knows he must look like the traitorous snake they all think him to be, glaring as their troops fly off to attack their enemy. If only they knew they could have done so much _more_.

Ben had always thought there would be _more_. More than the awkward, little boy. More than the son of Han Solo and General Leia Organa. More than the Nephew of Luke Skywalker. More than Snoke's Apprentice. More than the First Order. More than the Resistance.

Just… _more_.

That warm caress strokes his mind a second before Rey stands next to him. "It'll be alright." She's watching the X-Wings fly off, no doubt specifically training on the fearless Black Leader. He knows they've mended things before the mission and he is glad Rey's friendships are not ruined by his presence. And yet, there is a question to her tone all the same.

"They will return," he knows this in the Force. It's what will happen _after_ he's concerned about. The First Order will respond and not within equality to this mission. They will strike and strike for fatality.

General Hux will take no rebel scum alive.

An uneasy thrum strikes the Bond. She believes his words. She won't ask why he's upset. Deep down, she doesn't want to know.

* * *

Three days pass; the pilots are to return late tonight. For now, Ben sits with his mother and Rey for supper and he realizes why he was so nervous to have these two powerful women sit together with him nearby.

"Oh, you should have seen him!" His mother titters – a sound resulting from too much cheap wine only rebels could afford. "He was all ears!"

Rey snickers into her own glass and Ben sulks at the edge of the table – he does not partake in spirits of any price range. Although he can't find fault in his girl's enjoyment and laughter – even if it is at his expense.

"He grew his hair out by ten," his mother continued, "so self-conscious." And here she eyes him with something softer than she has graced him yet. So he doesn't say that children were cruel and he had been bullied severely from the moment he stepped foot in that private school she had such high hopes from him. No. He doesn't say that's why he became so introverted and focused on his studies and had no friends. He won't explain how he _forced_ himself to be smarter than everyone else (even his witless professors) so that she could hire private tutors and avoid having to leave his home altogether.

He only huffs as if he is mildly annoyed with her poking fun at him and swallows the ach that builds in his chest.

"Seems like he grew into them," Rey reaches out and tucks his curls behind his ears. He does not flinch until her wayward fingers stroke the shell of his ear in parting. With a critical eye he cannot tell if she meant to do that on purpose. And just like that the ach vanishes.

Flicking his gaze to his mother, he sees her knowing smirk before she polishes off her glass. Confounding creatures: women.

"Tell me more stories of your childhood!" Rey places her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands, and stares so expectantly at him that Ben feels the heat of a flush on his skin.

Force, take him! He cannot deny her anything. Such a curious, adventurous creature, diving head first into one of the quarantined topics he and his mother have isolated from pleasant conversation.

So he starts small, he was a studious child, quiet and unobtrusive.

To which his mother interrupts with a very un-princess-like snort, "The hells you were!"

"I'm sorry?"

"You were so inquisitive as a toddler, always getting into everything!" She taps the tabletop and Rey turns her attention to her. "At three – _three_! – he stole his father's portable holo-comm and took it apart! I walked in on him – he was so quiet I _knew_ something had happened – and all the piece were laid out in neat little rows. I thought I was gonna faint! Your father had not had that blasted thing for a week and there it was – _in little, tiny pieces_!" she doesn't even realize she's talking to him about his father. "And I was worried he was gonna yell – oh, Han could yell with the best of them! And I was so close to telling you how much trouble you were gonna be in when he got home. When suddenly…" she smiles that soft smile that makes Ben squirm. "Suddenly you looked at me, and you just started fitting everything back together again. Piece by piece."

The room is painfully silent.

He doesn't remember this, but he had been so young it doesn't surprise him.

What does surprise him is that he isn't all that good with mechanics and engineering; how could he do more as a toddler than now as a grown man?

"You must have been so proud!" Rey breaks the silence with her charming excitement. "Did it still work?"

Leia shakes her shoulders as if Rey startled her, "Oh, yes. There was a slight lag but we never told Han what happened and he cursed the devise until…" she looks away for a moment before losing some of her vivacity. "He probably would _still_ be cursing it, honestly."

For one Force-awful second he thinks she punishing him, but the tone is wrong. It's like she's stating a fact, a dear fact, one she holds close to her heart, but a fact and not a barb as he thought.

"He probably would, he hated buying anything new if something still worked."

His mother snorts again before finally meeting his eye with that same soft smile. " _Worked?_ Ha! Even if it was held together with glue and tape he still refused to replace anything."

It still hurts too much to smile back, but it doesn't hurt as much as it did yesterday, or the day before. Rey's hand slips into his under the table and he's grateful she's holding him together with that simple gesture.

"What happened? After that, I mean." She asks softly, treading the conversation carefully now that the rules have changed.

Leia titters again, "I knew I was in trouble! Even before the Force touched him, I suddenly had this genius in dippers and I had no clue what I was gonna do about it!"

This time, the words do sting and burn and he hisses in a breath. He really was such a burdensome child. He was too much even at such a young age? No wonder he compensated with trying to be as small and unobtrusive as possible later, before they sent him away.

"Ben?" and he hates the way his mother says his name. Still looking for that lost, little boy. How he hates that she can't see _him_!

"You knew what to do." He wants to stop. He knows he needs to stop. But he just can't! The words flow from his mouth like bile, rising up and burning his stomach and throat. "You knew exactly what to do with him. I was always someone's problem. First that private school. Then the tutors and the droids. Then Skywalker –" because, Force, take him, he cannot call him Uncle right now.

"There was always the next conference, the next meeting, the next senator, the next general. There was never time for me. And _Han_ ," he spits the name like a curse because he has to purge himself now or he'll always be drowning in his pain.

"Han had the next score, the next run, the next big adventure. We were never enough for him. I was never enough for him." The whispers and the disappointment and the many, many, mornings when Ben woke up and his father was just _gone_.

"I couldn't be enough for either of you. I had to be a genius. I had to be a Jedi. You never asked what I wanted, you just decided and _left me_."

Why is he doing this to her!? She's crying but she isn't shaking or moving – a marble stature with tears. Why is he doing this now?

Rey is in front of him, filling his vision, which is blurry and he realizes he's crying as well. "I just wanted to stay home. I wanted to be a senator, like her."

A surprised, broken sound comes from his mother but he focuses on Rey. "But no one ever asked me what I wanted. I did what I was told. I tried so hard to be good. I did everything they told me to do. I excelled at that forsaken school. I never raised my voice, never made trouble. I was quiet; I was _good_."

Luke's face, lit by the sick green of his lightsaber chokes Ben the way Snoke never could with the Force. He simply cannot breathe!

 _Rey_! He latches on the Bond like a lifeline in a hurricane. _Help me, Rey_!

She's been stroking him, brushing his tears away and rubbing his neck, pushing her warmth into him but it isn't enough. He's dying! He can't breathe!

Strong arms and a small body envelope him and Ben gasps harshly. His mother is sobbing; big retching, ugly sobs that shake her entire frame. This isn't the comfort and relief from the first time they saw one another. This is something broken and fragile and cleansing.

"I'm sorry!"

And he gulps in lungfuls of air.

"My poor boy! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to abandon you! I didn't mean to send you away! I thought… _We_ thought we were _helping you_!" the words register but not quite through her shattering sobs. It's like he knows what she's saying, like she's saying it in his mind but without words.

"Oh, Ben, I am so, so sorry."

He looks up and sees Rey sitting close. He reaches out to her because she can hold him together. When she scurries to take his hand, pressing it to her tear stained cheek, he manages to even his breathing to something normal, something like the way a droid would mimic breathing, he imagines. It's a conscious, methodical effort but he manages it nonetheless with his eyes on Rey's.

"Thank you." He says and it's for both of these amazing, powerful women. He knew his mother deserved more…but maybe…maybe little Ben deserved more, too.

* * *

 **-The biggest thank you to my Beta,** Hamliet **. And a thank you to all who read/reviewed! Please do so again!**

 **Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, no affiliated worlds, cultures, and people. I did create the "What if" story myself and I've had a great time doing it!**


	3. Chapter 3

**Thank you to all whom read/reviewed/favorited/followed this story! I've decided that I will upload 2 chapters a month! Please, write even the smallest review – I would love to know if I've made you laugh or cry, if my interpretation is within canon, what you think might happen, or what you would like to see happen.**

 **I get all most source material from Wookiepedia.**

 **Enjoy Chapter 3!**

Rey stands close as she frowns at the scene.

The Resistance is relishing in their _victory_.

Their raid was successful, Ben never doubted _that_ ; the planet freed (until the First Order comes back with bigger guns or their previous barbarian tyrants take up their thrones once more) and the dreadnaught boarded (before it was blown out of the sky). Now a handful of First Order officers and a few more Stormtroopers are bound and kneeling before the warlords.

Ben and Rey stand out of view.

It's unnecessary since none of these men and women know his face, but he would rather stand as far apart from the Resistance as possible right now. By his boot a porg coos softly as it nuzzles the scuffed leather. He thinks about kicking it away, whereas before he knows he would have just done the deed without conscious consideration. But the boots no longer shine anyway, and it is a harmless, ball of fluffy feathers and large eyes.

Ben lets the porg be and turns back to the scene.

Vice Admiral Teek is a pompous fool, using flowery language to paint their negotiable treachery into heroism. But these are conditioned soldiers who were trained to believe in the cause all their lives. None of them have a reason to turn like Ben did.

He looks at that reason now.

Rey appears sick. He strokes the back of her hand.

 _Your Resistance won, and yet you don't look too happy._

She turns to him. _I don't like this, taking prisoners, forcing them to turn on the First Order._

 _Would you rather they be back on that dreadnaught?_

 _I would_ rather _we treat them with some humanity. Many of their friends died and we have them tied up and kneeling before the Council_.

Oh, his darling, caring girl – using words like "friends". She has such compassion for her enemy. It is no wonder Ben jumped off that cliff so long ago and into her outstretched hand. He flicks a glance at the unthreatening bird curling around his boot.

 _If you believe the Resistance should be doing things differently, do it_.

She startles, _And overrule the Council_?

Who has whipped his girl into this cowed dog? She is formidable! Powerful!

Meeting her eyes he entreats through the Bond, _Rey, remind them of the people you see in them. You are the most powerful creature I've ever known. If you can tame the fearsome Kylo Ren, you can do anything you want!_

Her hand strokes his face, the bruises are all gone now but her touch is whisper-soft. _Why do you speak of yourself like that_?

 _You're stalling, Rey_.

And suddenly Vice Admiral Teek orders Commander Dameron to shoot one of the Stormtroopers. Not a single one has uttered a word to the man while Ben conversed with Rey. So he means to make an example to the others. This is war; no one can fault him for that.

His mother protests, Dameron protests, and Rey finally steps out of the shadows, leaving him there.

She is ethereal. He's always thought so. Her shirt is tucked into leggings and she wears a light trench coat that she had cut the sleeves off – too restrictive in a fight, she had reasoned. It's a mixture of pearl and storm greys, a nicer outfit than the one she came to him on the _Supremacy._ With her hair half-down she looks wild and fierce.

Nothing in the galaxy can touch her. Nothing can stop her.

"That will be all, Vice Admiral." Her strong voice is clear and final in a way no one has heard before. The Force folds itself around her, abetting and strengthening her. He knew this feeling only once, on Star Killer when she had entered Battle Meditation.

It had been glorious then and it is glorious now to witness the way she wields the Force so effortlessly.

"These are prisoners of war, and as such they will be treated with decency. Lieutenant Connix, take them to the cells. Provide them with ample blankets; it gets cold down there. Doctor Kolania, please take care of their wounded. Let them rest and mourn those they lost tonight."

He is not alone in his wonder. The First Order captives stare at Rey with astonishment and suspicion. It almost makes him laugh.

The fairy of an officer along with the straight-backed woman with black and silver hair who speaks little on the Council, both who had voted for him so long ago, and several others move quickly, mildly influenced by the Force as it had invaded her voice to carry over the crowd. Rey grants him a quick, pleased look as she follows behind the captives to oversee their imprisonment is comfortable.

"That will be the last time you question my authority," Vice Admiral Teek reprimands Commander Dameron for his protests.

Ben smirks at the men. "I couldn't help but notice your method for treating Prisoners of War, Vice Admiral."

"Knight," the old man sneers. "It appears your compatriots are less inclined to sell out their own than you were." It's a dig meant to insult and Ben snorts. Would he rather Ben show more devotion to an organization that would have Rey murdered on sight?

"Indeed," he smirks, truly enjoying rubbing the man wrong. "I suppose you are stuck with me for a little longer, Vice Admiral."

Because this man is weak minded to the Force, if not to his fellow man, his surface thoughts scream at killing Kylo Ren; trying to undermine his usefulness; and there is a hint of _infatuation_ with General Organa that breaks Ben's smirk.

His entire bearing darkens and the very air around the three men grows cold rapidly.

"Were the roles reversed," Ben growls low enough for only the commander and Teek to hear, "be assured I wouldn't have been quiet so foolish with my POWs."

Leaving the old man sputtering, Dameron grabs Ben's arm and steers them away from the slight crowd they've gathered. Ben is still an odd sight to see, especially among large groups of people.

"Smooth, Ben-Ren," Dameron growls under his breath. "Are you _trying_ to get yourself executed?"

"That man holds no real power over me." _Ben-Ren?!_

Dameron's eyes widen before he shakes his head, "Is it a Force-thing to be so reckless?" there's a weary laugh tinting the words and Ben offers a small smile as he shakes the man's hand off of him. Ever since Rey set him straight, Poe Dameron has been…around, at least before he led this useless mission. Ben isn't sure he likes it. But he knows this man means much to Rey and if he's not going to start a fist fight, he supposes he can tolerate the man's presence. He _does_ manage to keep most of the rebels at bay so at least Dameron has his uses.

A ripple in the Force draws Ben's gaze across the hanger where everyone gathered and his eyes lock with his mother's. For a heartbeat they only stare before Ben turns away first. There might have been an ounce of forgiveness earlier this evening, but Ben simply isn't ready to deal with even a teaspoon at that moment.

For longer than a decade Ben had been trained to let his anger fester and grow. This cathartic, fleeting, fluttering forgiveness is new and foreign. He doesn't know what to do with it. He doesn't know how he's supposed to act without anger guiding his hand.

The ripple burns for a split second and he knows he's hurt her once more, but this time he cannot bring himself to beg at her feet. He needs to deal with this new feeling without the anger on his own.

"So, Ben-Ren," he's decided he _does not_ like Poe Dameron after all. "Things worked out pretty well for us rebel scum, wouldn't you say?"

He scoffs, "I had no doubt with my superior intel you'd overwhelm and commandeer the _Conqueror_. I've only expressed what a _waste_ it was to such intel."

"A waste?" Dameron laughs, "What's wasteful about taking out a dreadnaught, freeing a planet from tyrannical rule, redistributing their resources, and capturing a few high-end First Order dogs while at it?"

Any warmth he could have had for the man evaporates. "Yes. You've destroyed one, outdated dreadnaught, on the edges of the galaxy no one cares about, mining resources hardly necessary and providing _order_ to an otherwise barbarian planet, with no form of government officially and will fall right back into chaos the moment any form of order is removed. All you've managed to do is to alert the First Order you have a _reliable_ source while taken captive the most worthless bunch of officers and Stormtroopers that, while stationed so far out, know little to nothing about the workings of the newly run First Order. Not to mention the warzone that planet will be without the might of the First Order to protect it." He adds that last bit under his breath but knows the man heard him all the same.

Dameron glares daggers at Ben and he matches him. After all, he learned to glare down the vicious wolves of the First Order, a more trying effort than this is now.

"That's not true."

"Really?" His glare slips behind disinterest as he straightens and clasps his hands behind his back as he does every time he _ever_ had to speak to General Hux, and the parallel is not lost on him. "You wish to refute _my_ evidence? You mean to say _you_ know more than _I_ about the First Order?"

"During our meetings…Why didn't you say anything?"

"I did; numerous times." He's good with numbers. He remembers. "I expressed explicit concern for this course of action. I voiced theoretical consequences based on _facts_ and experience. I was ignored every – single – time."

"But all that," he gestures wildly, "all that you just said-"

"I've said it all before, Commander. You're precious Council took a vote and decided my facts and experiences meant nothing. You may call this a victory, Commander, but come tomorrow you will realized I'm worth more than to answer questions. I was valued as a key strategist among my peers. Perhaps you will do well to remember and utilize that."

* * *

He finally has his own rooms – based out of necessity now that the jail is full and his pervious living quarters are otherwise taken. He and Rey camp on the outskirts of the abandoned research facility the Resistance overran. Two small, stone huts squat between the forest and the compound; one for Rey and one right next door for Ben.

It is humbling, which is another word for minimal, little.

Fleetingly he misses his quarters on the _Finalizer_. The space had been large; rooms cut out, separated, and each one assigned a purpose. The bed had been massive, the only furniture in the bedroom, with gleaming, black floor space to spare so he could loosen his muscles with his morning and evening exercises. The floor-to-ceiling viewport occupying his study had made the room feel open, larger. It had comforted him to see the gaping expanse of space every day.

That said, this was a hut Rey had commissioned and assisted building for him. It doesn't matter that the cot barely fits his cumbersome frame. It doesn't matter that the firepit for cooking, the cot and a little bookshelf that serves also as a desk are all the furnishings permitted. He doesn't mind the limited space, but he is not a small man and sometimes the tight quarters seem to press in on him when he least expects it, forcing him to take a moment outside to suck down fresh air because it was as if there weren't enough inside.

This sudden and yet also creeping unease falls upon him randomly so there does not seem to be any countering it. When the walls shrink and the air thins, Ben scrambles to the door before the roof can collapse above his head. After a few breaths he forces himself back inside to repeat the process all over again.

He does not understand this feeling.

After his sixth escape, while he rests his back against the cold stone wall he hears the rustle of clothing on skin and boots on wood before Rey's door creaks open, and the soft glow of her lightstick spills across the dirt to touch his own boots.

Hair eschewed, clothes rumpled, eyes drooping as she yawns like a cat, Rey mumbles, "Ben, what's wrong?"

It must be nearing dawn but not for another hour and he realizes he must have woken her with his unease.

"Couldn't sleep." Not a lie.

She hums in agreement, "Yes, I know. What's wrong? Is it about the First Order members?" He appreciates the way she doesn't use the word "captives."

"No. I trust you took care of them."

"As best I could. I'm surprised no one stopped me, honestly." She laughs lightly as she sits next to him, leaning against him for warmth in the dewy morning. "So what's the matter? Are you going to make me ask all night?"

She knows all his tricks, no doubt.

But the unease, the sudden lack of air and the impression, if not the vision itself, of the walls closing in and the roof falling on him is too much to describe right now. Perhaps in the light of day he will be able to express himself better.

"I can't talk about it, yet." She sighs in…relief at his words and settles a little closer to him. "I will when I am able."

"Alright," she hums again.

Ben checks the scar on Rey's arm; it has a strange look to it. Healing, yes, but it's broken up into two parts that appear as if they were once one and pulled and torn into two. The split section of the two scars appear as to be reaching for one another, to be put back together once more. Without words to explain it, Ben feels a flutter in his chest whenever he sees it.

His own looks nothing like this although it was born of a similar weapon. The scar on his neck is blackened and raised just like Rey's but it is one solid line that branches off into two lines and forks off from there adding two more. In an abstract, loose way it reminds Ben of Force Lightening – breaking into several threads with a mind of its own.

"You're thinking too loud, Ben," Rey mutters against his chest. He moves his arm around her and she nuzzles her cheek against his First Order tunic. Ben is a man with only the clothes on his back to his name now; no individually crafted shuttle, no single suite designed for his position. And even now, these clothes belonged to another man that went by another name.

All he has of the man he made himself for so long are the worn black clothes and…"I was wondering what happened to my lightsaber." He had given it to his mother before leaving the Falcon and hasn't heard about it since. For a split second, dread fills his bones as he thinks she disposed of it.

Rey stiffens, "It's safe."

"Rey?"

"I mean, I took it from Leia. I have it somewhere safe until…well…hopefully you won't _need_ it…but…" Biting her lip she pulls slightly away from him, uncomfortable. No doubt his mother told her to keep it far from him.

Ben ponders those words carefully. Did his mother think it might appease the Council? Or had she simply hated the thing so much she asked Rey to hide it? Or maybe she simply didn't trust Ben with it. It was hard to describe the innate feeling of _right_ when one held one's lightsaber.

The Bond strums soothingly, timidly. Thankfully there was someone right here he didn't have to describe anything to.

"I'm not mad, Rey," he reassures the timidity he feels through the Bond. "I feel much better knowing you are guarding it."

She smiles, and in the dark morning it warms Ben the way no fire could. He sighs as they settle back against one another. "Perhaps, when the Council doesn't suspect you so much, you'll be able to have it back."

Force, take the Council!

Ben feels that burning hatred that simmered and _thrived_ for so long within him every time Rey mentioned them. Quite honestly, he and Rey should answer to no one!

Even the First Jedi from their old book believed Force-Users answered to a higher, less human-based calling.

" _If the Force wills it, Rey, I will have my saber back._ " He gently educates her. _This_ is what she should be following, not some dying, limping, weak construct of the old Republic.

Ben and his Knights hadn't answered to the military structure of the First Order. He, and in turn they, had answered to Snoke; who at the time was the Voice of the Force to Ben.

He and Rey are sensitive to the Force, a power in the galaxy so few are permitted to know. It was the Force that had melded Rey and Ben's lives together. It is the Force they should be answering to.

"Yes," she smiles as she closes her eyes. "If the Force wills it."

* * *

Irritable from his lack of sleep, Ben glares at the men and women who call themselves his mother's Council. He stands, as he always does, with his back to the monitor as they sit before him and stare at him like an exhibit at a museum. His cheek twitches and he wishes to cover his bare face with a mask. But not to hide from _them_.

Oh, that simmering hate is spilling out from where he thought he locked it down.

"Please, repeat that." He doesn't bother with names and titles anymore. These _weak_ individuals who muzzled his Rey, overrule his mother, and hardly use him with any expertise at all.

The First Order has already retaliated, issuing rewards for any and all who can provide information on the missing officers (not the Stormtroopers). There are _Bounty Hunters_ on the backs of the Rebel Scum now.

He _knew_ Hux would respond this way. His initial report that he turned in to the Council four days ago said as much.

And as Ben expressed, the five men and three women taken prisoner don't know anything of any help to the Resistance nor have any incentive to divulge any information if they did.

"Our usual efforts to gather information would take time. Time we do not have," Teek snaps. "So we are demanding you to add to your usual services to the Resistance and interrogate our captives."

Rey is fuming, "Councilor! You cannot mean to ask Ben to-"

"This is not the time for Jedi ways," Teek breaks her off. The hot, boiling rage flows through his veins like the lava of Mustafar. "This is war, Jedi _girl_."

And Ben breaks.

His head is bowed and the flickering of the fluorescent lighting is the first warning that something is amiss before Rey turns suddenly towards him. Her hazel eyes are wide, the green brighter than usual. Absently he focuses on that.

It is enough they hate him. _Let them hate him_. It is enough if they question and debate his mother, that shows intuition and leadership and a Council should not be made up of sheep. But they _do not_ get to treat Rey like scavenger trash!

Ben deserves death. He deserves to rot and decay and relive his sins over and over again. He is a monster.

Rey is pure.

And Ben has not slept well since murdering his master, since jumping off a cliff.

The lights are sporadic and sparks fly as they try in vain to work properly. The powered-down monitor behind him cracks; spider webs fork this way and that behind him splitting the sudden silence with a creaking, cracking, splintering sound. Then the table, that lone barrier they all thought was their safety net breaks in two and parts like invisible hands tore into it before flinging both useless pieces into the walls.

Plaster rains from the ceiling as fissures and rifts cut along the duracrete, reaching like too-long, skeletal fingers for the worthless, _weak_ mortals that call themselves gods.

There is screaming and yelling and blasters going off.

He burns.

His blood, his hate, he can't stop it now. It is _alive_ in him.

"You want me to be Kylo Ren?" he snarls at the cowering Teek, hiding behind the pixie lieutenant and Commander Dameron. He reaches out his hand, there's no leather encasing his brittle flesh but he'll fix that soon enough. "Let's see if I can still do it."

And it's so easy to dig into Teek's mind. It's only a moment, a breath, and he has every, ugly thought he's ever had of his mother, every moment he ever thought to impress her, to be _better_ than her. He knows every foul thing he's ever thought of the cocky pilot, every time he wished he'd died on a mission and never came home.

It's only for a moment, a breath.

Then too-green eyes, burning like bronze, swallow his vision. And her voice, encased and fortified by the Force itself is _everywhere_ – in his ears, in his mind, it echoes throughout time and space and he drowns in her power.

"Ben! Stop – you have to stop!"

But he wanted this. He asked this of him.

"He didn't know what he was saying?"

Why?! Why does she _still_ defend them – defer to them? She is so much _more_ than they deserve! She is so much _more_ than he deserves!

"Ben, please, don't go this way!"

Fair is a construct people created to make themselves feel better. Oh! How he wishes to feel better! The hatred _burns_ him. It is like there is no air, no _life_!

It is as if Snoke is standing at his back, his long fingers gripping his shoulder as he leans over him, and he's so small, only sixteen, and there is so much pain, more pain than one person can conceivably understand, more pain than is humanly possible to exist. It is as if his old master were looming over him, stealing his air right from his lungs, leaving him Force-still, unable to collapse and _beg to make it stop!_

It is everywhere and Ben is nowhere, nothing. He doesn't deserve to breathe. He doesn't deserve to live!

"BEN!"

She is all there is, all there will be. He can die knowing she will live on, she will always survive. It's what the Force has done for her. She will continue on, and Ben will die because he was a fool to think there was anything more he could possibly have asked for.

The world goes black, black, black.

* * *

She wants to kill him!

She really, really does. After she saves his life, of course.

It isn't _fair!_ No matter what he said about it being a human construct – she's human! She's allowed to demand something go right in her life!

"BEN!" she barely catches him as he falls into her arms. But she has to take them to the floor because he's so blasted heavy!

Poe scrambles close and she snarls, lips pulling back from her teeth, and she leans over Ben's body. "Don't you touch him!"

"Rey-"

He doesn't get to finish. None of them will take him from her! "NO! Don't touch him, Poe!"

"He's a monster!" Teek snaps as he pulls himself away from Kaydel Ko. He's shaking, pale, sweating – _weak._ "He should be put down!" His eyes are too wide, showing too much white and making him look crazed, like the sun-drunk on Jakku. He looked ready to murder.

"You cornered him!" And Rey ignores that this unpleasant man uses the same word she had when the Bond first manifested for them. "You asked him to do something from the Dark Side! What did you think was going to happen!?"

She looks down at the man that means so much to her. "I promised him a chance to do good." Her eyes are like fire as she pins Teek with her glare, and maybe a little of the Force, too. "You are so quick to throw him back to the Dark as if his life means nothing!"

Desperately she looks to the men and women Leia Organa trusted above all others. Lieutenant Connix, although she was so young; Lieutenant Shoveks, a quiet and reserved man who works with number, thinks through things much like Ben does; Poe, the hotshot who suddenly became a leader among men; Commander Crossix, a large man that was once a renowned lawyer; Commander D'Acy, despite her usual soft-spoken attitude is just a strong-willed as the general; Major Kalonia, the doctor who only ever said anything kind to Rey; General Ematt, the man with the compassionate brown eyes that always looked so sad whenever Ben was in the room with him; and Vice Admiral Teek, who still looked ready to blast her head clear off. These were the men and women General Leia Organa, famous war hero, held in the highest regard.

In a room with so many amazing people with years of experience backing them up, Rey had always wondered why she was permitted into these strategy meetings.

Now, she has no doubt.

In their fear of the First Order, of Kylo Ren, these men and women fell from their polished pedestals they placed themselves on and failed to realize they were doing it.

Rey wouldn't let them fall far. But she would keep them climbing back onto their precious pedestals.

"This is on you!" She shouts and catches the eyes of every individual in the room. Leia included. _This was her son!_ How could she let them vote on something like this?!

All she wants is to get Ben somewhere safe and keep him there for the rest of their lives.

Finally Doctor Kalonia kneels beside Rey and starts scanning Ben. "He is only unconscious, due to stress and fatigue," her portable scanner feeds her a streaming, endless lists of gibberish Rey can't decipher. "Commander Dameron's blaster doesn't seem to be very serious. We can treat him in the Med Bay."

"No." Teek's voice is firm. "We will dump him in a cell with the rest of his First Order rubbish!"

Poe stands in front of Teek, blocking his way while staring him down and to Rey's surprise, Kaydel Ko stands beside him. Her usually impeccable hair is disheveled and her cheeks are flushed but she looks entirely capable of body slamming Teek should he give her reason to. "You will not touch him. Ben defected and is therefore a Rebel. Just like me. Just like you. We'll treat him; we take care of our own. And when he wakes up, things are going to be different."

"Stand down, Commander," there is warning in Teek's voice.

"No, Vice Admiral," General Ematt finally pushes himself off the floor without assistance and stands tall while Shoveks assists Leia from a corner of the room that appears entirely untouched by the chaos. "Commander Dameron is right. Ben has done all he said he would do. And when we made the wrong choice all he said was to not blame him." Those warm, brown eyes land on Rey as she crouches over Ben's body. "Things are going to be different."

It sounds like a promise. Like an oath. Like one of those sacred vows from the Jedi text made in blood.

Leia rushes to her son and her sudden movement breaks whatever spell the others are on. Teek with Crossix flee the scene. Poe, Lieutenant Shoveks, General Ematt, and even Kaydel Ko (small as she is) assist lifting Ben. Poe and Shoveks take the bulk of the weight and drag him none-too-gently, but not on purpose, to the Med Bay where Doctor Kalonia starts setting him up immediately with machines that are supposed to monitor and aid him.

With him settled to begin her work, the doctor sends everyone out, including Leia. Rey appreciates that and helps as much as she can, even though Rey has never considered herself suitable to the delicate pressure of healing and medicine. At Dr. Kalonia's clipped tone that forces Rey into action simply by the assured authority in her voice, Rey begins cutting Ben's First Order uniform from his body. Her fingers barely glance along his naked flesh but Rey's only thoughts are for Ben's wellbeing. She doesn't have room for anything else.

So when the shreds and ribbons of fabric are entirely removed in order for Dr. Kalonia to get a better look at the blaster wound, Rey's brain doesn't entirely catch up with her eyes until the doctor's face pinches in almost anger. After her cool tones this sudden heat brings Rey into sharp focus.

And when she does realize what she's looking at, her knees practically give way and tears fill her eyes.

It's a landscape of devastation and agony; scars, old and new, lay upon Ben's back disfiguring what was once smooth, flawless skin. There are the black, raised burns of the blades that cut into Rey's arm, the splotchy spots of blaster burns, the thin mutilations of healed lightsaber lacerations, but also the split, gaping slashes with black, meshed, synthetic flesh underneath untreated lightsaber wounds. There are markings from weapons Rey had no reference for, all in various stages of treated and untreated, healed and healed _wrong_. From the bones of his shoulder blades the range of injuries travels all across his broad shoulders and wide back, down to the small of his back, snaking and slithering along his spine. Some go further but his trousers prevent her from seeing them.

Rey doesn't pull back the way the doctor does. No, she leans forward and presses her forehead to the accumulation of suffering. Her hands grip his shoulders tightly, and the tears silently fall as she tries not to imagine what all this means.

She helps when she can; placing bacta patches on the blaster burn on his side, a few centimeters off of a blaster bolt wound with the doctor's guiding words. The woman is level-headed, calm, almost cold but not in a dispassionate way and she soothes Rey's nerves. She's reigned in her anger from before.

"Did you not know?" she gently prods Rey as she fills a syringe with clear liquid.

"I only ever saw his chest," she shivers as she pulls slightly back so that the doctor can work. "Only the one time." And she hadn't really _looked_ then. She had been angry and uncomfortable and she only had room for answers to questions. She hadn't looked at the evidence printed so blatantly on his skin.

More or maybe different clear liquid slides through a tube connected to bag and Ben's arm. Rey inspects the smaller, thinner, paler scratches and cuts along his strong arms. He is solid and real as her fingers ghost along his pale flesh, catching the bumps of more pain and suffering. These wounds seem so tiny in comparison to his back, even to the slice on his face. And yet they are only a testament to something terrible – something no one who never experienced it could even fathom.

After they've done all they can, Dr. Kalonia pulls up a desk chair and carefully steers Rey to sit at Ben's bedside. With one last squeeze of her hand, the good doctor smiles and leaves. With one breath, Rey takes Ben's hand and holds it in both of hers. The little wire that whirrs and vibrates and communicates through them that is their Bond is still there and Rey lets out her breath in relief.

Then she sets to work with as much delicate pressure as she can muster, listening to the Force, feeling it flow through her and into Ben, from Ben and back to her. She listens and feels. Listens and feels. Listens. Feels.

 _If the Force wills it…_

 **I know have cover art thanks to the wonderful** Szikee. **You can find more of their Reylo art on DeviantArt.**

 **Again, I must thank my wonderful Beta** Hamliet **. Check out their Reylo Fanfictions on this site as well.**

 **At the request of my very good friend, I have added porgs!**

 ***Disclaimer of ownership can be found in Chapter 2.**


	4. Chapter 4

Rey had never known there was so much green in the galaxy until the day she left Jakku.

Until then she had only known sand. Treacherous. Deceiving. Lonely. It expanded beyond Niima Outpost for days and days and days. The only time when the days of sand shifted and changed was during the stormy season, when the wind would gather it up and spew it out, suffocating and blinding and murdering all unfortunate to be stranded in its path.

Then she learned there was so much more to the world than sand.

There were trees, enormous giants that blocked out the sun with their expanding branches and fluffy leaves. There were meadows and fields, deceptive in their own way – grass was not as flat as it appeared to be – but beautiful with splotches of colorful flowers. There was dirt, not sand, and stone that was cold to the touch even on a sunny day and never shifted under your feet when you least expected it.

And water! Oh! There were thin rivers that sneaked through D'Qar where she could drink from and the ponds that held colorful fish and wonders.

Then there were beaches, the ocean. She hadn't seen a beach in reality before, only dreams. Dreams of one beach in particular, dreams of sand that didn't hurt, dreams of water that invited her closer with its game of push and pull – all Rey had were dreams and sand before she left Jakku.

But on Ahch-To, Rey had finally found a beach – maybe not _her beach_ , but something close and she didn't have to be picky. She finally had smells and sounds and sensations to go with the picture her mind had painted.

And while there, she found a cliff as well, and also something below. The sudden, sucking slip that had seized her as she leaned over her cliff pulled her down, down, deep into water she could drown in and a silence that could steal the very breath from her lungs.

Darkness.

Rey didn't know about other people – she didn't think of herself as a good judge of character. She only knew what she felt. Like when Han had offered her a job, she hadn't felt pity but appreciation of her skill. Like when Finn had come back for her, she hadn't felt obligation but friendship.

Like when Ben had reached out and touched her hand through the Bond, she had felt _everything_.

So, no, Rey couldn't say if it was the same for everyone. All she knew for certain was that should she come across another cliff in her life, Rey knew she would have the bravery to jump. Whatever was beyond the cliff, Rey learned, was better than simply standing there or turning away from it. For too long she had stayed still, never moving forward, always looking to the past to save her.

After fighting at Ben's side on the _Supremacy_ , defending one another, as she watched him stare at his dead master and the vacant throne, Rey felt the same sudden, sucking, slipping sensation she had on Ahch-To. Instead of being taken by surprise by it, Rey had jumped head first.

And he had followed her to the Resistance. He helped her smuggle the last of the Rebels, her friends, from the greedy grasp of the First Order. He faced Chewie, his mother, and all the ramifications Rey hadn't thought of.

Finn had shown up on the Resistance's doorstep without a lick of hostility. But Ben…Ben had been attacked by the Council and he took it; every accusation, every barb, every poisoned word he allowed. Rey had seen him wield the Force; there was no doubt in her mind that Ben let the Council say whatever they wished.

It was all, no doubt, for his mother's sake. These were her people and he had joined the cause – suddenly Force-choking a group of the highest ranking individuals you were trying to win over wouldn't do him any favors. But he seemed to be trying, really trying to redeem himself.

When she and Poe had left him that first night, Rey had almost cried. It wasn't fair (she was coming to learn)! He had done it all right! He left the Dark Side, defeated the sinister Snoke, saved the day, and now he was fighting with the Resistance – _for_ the Resistance.

And yet, _he_ was sitting in a cold cell all alone, treated no better than a criminal.

Finn hadn't understood.

"What's he doing here, Rey? What do you mean you brought him back? Why were you on the _Supremacy_ in the first place?" His questions grated like sand.

Why didn't he understand? They both defected. They both fought as Rebels now. They were both good men.

And she cared very much about both of them.

Maybe it was because she didn't tell him about the Bond. That whirring wire that vibrated and hummed like a well-oiled machine – _that_ was not for Finn. What she and Ben had, the little wire that connected her gears to his and purred with efficiency, _that_ wasn't for anyone else. It was private, and there were so few things in this galaxy that Rey could claim as her own.

She couldn't even claim all of Ben; he was split between the Council and Leia.

The relief when Ben had demanded he be put into Rey's care nearly knocked her off her feet. She couldn't lose him. Not now. Not ever. And he must have sensed some of Rey's unease to have ordered the Council about like he had. Surely, he was catering to something she unknowingly transmitted through their Bond.

So she wouldn't tell Finn about the Bond, but she also couldn't say what Ben had told her happened his last night under Luke's teaching. What happened at Luke's academy was between the old man and Ben and maybe Leia. It was something she couldn't very well pronounce to the entire Rebel base. So without explaining those two key reasons, that made explaining _why_ she went to save Ben from the Supreme Leader himself difficult and she could sense Finn knew she wasn't telling him everything.

"He's going to turn on you. He's a monster, Rey, all the Stormtroopers say so. He's killed innocent people! He murdered his own-"

And she left him in his room to rage and snap at no one. It hurt.

Finn was the first friend that had come back for her. He was her first, _real_ friend.

Would she have to choose between them? Ben made no ultimatums but Finn seemed to be on the verge of something like it. Would he ask her to choose?

She didn't know what she would do if he did.

Then the Bond had snapped and sucked everything away except for _Ben_. And she had been so relieved that she couldn't even speak. And when he _smiled_ , oh, her heart swelled.

She thought everything was going to be okay; he was safe, their Bond was still _alive_ despite Snoke claiming to have created it.

" _This is_ our _Bond. Perhaps Snoke did something to it, but it is_ ours _."_

The blatant possession he had spoken with, as if she were something to be fiercely cherished, had rocked her foundations. She was just as special to him as he was to her. Everything was going to be okay. He was safe – far away from the First Order. Their Bond thrived now that they were no longer separated by lightyears.

The bruises and cuts and dried blood she had seen the next day nearly made her ignite her lightsaber among these people she thought she could trust. He never outright lied to her but he was skilled at evading things he didn't want to talk about. And what happened – no, _who_ did that to him – was a secret he wasn't going to share.

It hurt he didn't trust her.

It wasn't until later when the thought occurred to her that maybe it wasn't about trust. Maybe he didn't want her to choose like Finn had alluded to. A choice he must have understood was nearly impossible for her.

Couldn't she just keep it all? Was it so selfish to want Finn, Leia, a place in the Resistance, a place in the galaxy, _and_ Ben?

These were questions that burned in Rey's heart, even after the Council treated Ben like a pet put up to preform: _do this; do that; sit; stay; be still; don't speak._ Some, not all, reminded Rey of Unkar Plutt.

It wasn't particularly what they said, exactly, but something about the way some, Vice Admiral Teek especially, talked to Ben brought Rey back to those early days on Jakku when she was first learning to survive. Before she could travel the lonely, deceiving days of sands, Rey had to learn to obey. She had to learn to be whatever Unkar Plutt thought a good, little girl was.

She wasn't sure what happened to that good, little girl, but eventually Rey learned to be whatever she wanted to be, so long as she had shelter from the sand and food in her belly.

It had not been an easy lesson to learn.

In fact, learning ancient Jedi philosophy and religion turned out to be far more fascinating. Learning to read with Ben, even more so. He provided more patience than she had ever witnessed in one person – the closest being the good General herself. She lost herself in the text, in Ben's deep voice as he read passages to her, dragging a bare finger along the unfamiliar print. Hours trail by and she hardly noticed as they pressed against one another to see more of the ancient words. It was like gravity, natural, compelling, the way they drew into one another.

Rey had lived a solitary life among the treacherous sands of Jakku. One could never be too careful, could never trust more than necessary, could never expect a kindness. Not among the deceiving days of Jakku. She didn't have friends, not in the sense she had with Finn or Poe, maybe a shared job here or there but nothing more.

She had been alone all her life.

Now, she wasn't alone. And neither was Ben.

The vibrating whirr of the Bond drew them together and Rey welcomed the warm sensations to fill her head and stomach whenever Ben reached out to her, caressed any part of her. There was nothing to compare this feeling to on Jakku. It was not quite unlike the way she had hugged Finn when they reunited on Crait. Not unlike the way Leia held her with steel in her older arms as if she were something strong Rey could rely on. Not unlike the good natured hand on her shoulder from Poe whenever she fixed an X-Wing the same gesture he made to his fellow pilots and to Finn.

When Rey was with Ben, it was all of those feelings but so much more, too. It didn't have the same static shock from when they first touched on Ahch-To through the Bond, but it still seemed to leave a fizzing feeling in her stomach. It was like snuggling in a safe, warm place during a storm; like having a full belly after a day of hard work; like sunshine and laughter after so long without it. Yet there was another feeling there that was close but different. Something like when Rey first saw so much green; the first time she tasted the sweet fruit at Maz's; like when Han asked her to join his team; like when Chewie praised her flying the Falcon; like when she touched the first new, clean clothes Leia had found for her before she set off to find Luke.

When she leaned against Ben, his hand wrapped around her wrist, his eyes only on hers, it was as if she were experiencing all the sweetness of fruit, the comfort of protection, the pride of a job well done, the smell of grass in the wind, the sensation of sun on her skin that didn't burn, something new, something just for her.

And with the Bond buzzing pleasantly through them she asked what had happened to his beautiful face. And he had not lied.

 _Poe_.

She set him straight – the laser brain!

Honestly, what kind of commander was he to attack Ben in his cell? She knew he had been tortured, that he had seen Ben at his worst, but he was also a man others followed by choice. He was someone to lead by example with the charisma to keep those followers. And he could have led them right to anger and suffering and all the things a man like Poe was better than.

She made sure he did the right thing: apologize to Ben. Because she's selfish and she wants to keep them all.

The laser brain.

When Ben was with his mother or sent to write reports, Rey fixed things. She had to fix things. She spent her whole life fixing things to stay alive. And now she was fixing things because she didn't know what else to do. She checked and rechecked every X-Wing, droid, and mechanical device she could get her hands on, even if she had to squeeze through the tiniest holes to get there.

Finn found her nearing a week after she and Ben saved the Rebels on Crait, while she was shoulders deep in one of the backup generators the base needed in case…well…she wasn't sure what they would need a fourth generator for since she fixed the last two, but it couldn't hurt to have a fourth generator. After she left him to stew in his animosity _days_ ago, Rey did not want to admit she had avoided her friend.

She was worried that if she saw him again that ultimatum would come up. She agonized over her imagination of Finn demanding her to leave Ben to the wolves or he was going to leave the Resistance.

Part of her knew she was being unreasonable. Finn had joined and believed in the Resistance. He wasn't about to just pack up and leave. There also seemed to be someone at Med Bay that took a decent amount of his time.

When he cleared his throat she realized she could put it off no longer. Yet she tried as she finished tightening the last bolt, screwed in the safety paneling, wiped her hands on a rag, and pulled herself up to her full height to look him in the eye.

 _Please don't ask this of me…_

"Rey," Finn sighed her name like it carried the weight of the world. "I miss you."

 _Oh,_ she wasn't expecting that.

"I don't want to fight. But can't you see it from my perspective?" he reached out but before he could touch her he pulled back. "I lived under the First Order all my life. I was raised on their propaganda. I _know_ what Kylo Ren-"

"Don't call him that," Rey sneered. "He's not the same man, Finn."

"And that!" he threw his hands up in the air and took a few steps away, " _That_ is what I don't understand! How could you _know_?"

"I was _there,_ Finn. I saw him kill Snoke. I saw him turn back to the Light."

"But there could have been plenty of reasons to kill Snoke! Sith kill their masters all the time!"

" _Don't call him that_ ," her sneer had upgraded to something more animal.

But Finn wasn't listening, "He probably wanted to rule the galaxy all along and used you as an opportunity to kill the Supreme Leader."

"Finn."

"He only followed you here so that he could spy on us!"

" _Finn_."

"Right now, he's probably telling General Hux all about where we are, how few of us there are."

" _Finn_."

"And he's feeding us false intel too, I'm sure! Face it Rey," and then he rushed forward, gripping her shoulders tightly while pressing in too close. "He will always be Kylo Ren!"

And Rey could not stop the sudden burst of Force that rose up to protect her. Rey had lived a solitary life among the treacherous sands of Jakku. One could never be too careful, could never trust more than necessary, could never expect a kindness. Not among the deceiving days of Jakku

When Finn had rushed too close, gripped her too roughly, she had reacted on instinct. A scream ripped from her throat as she Force-pushed Finn away from her. He didn't fly far, but he rolled against the duracrete until he was far enough away that Rey could breathe, _just breathe._ Her eyes widened in fear as her friend's face scowled at her.

"He's already messed with your mind," his soft, desperate words were at war with the anger etched on his face as he gathered himself off the floor. "You can't see what he's done to you." Then he left.

Rey hadn't even tried to stop him, to explain _again_ that Ben had done nothing to her. In the garage where she typically worked, the large space seemed to grow like a yawning beast. Usually the sounds of metal on metal filled her little haven but now, with her arms limp and her tools silent there was only the overwhelming, quiet stillness. Not even a breeze filtered through the open doors. And for the first time since Rey sat on a deserted island she felt alone.

The wire buzzed along her consciousness and she couldn't help the little smile that graced her lips at his gentle prodding.

 _Are you alright?_

 _Yes…No._ He could tell if she were lying.

 _Would you like me to come to you?_

 _Yes._

She didn't have to wait long. Ben was there within moments, breathing hard and face flushed as if he had run the whole way. He found her curled up on herself behind the generator so no passerby could see her. Without saying anything, he sat beside her, pulling her against his solid frame and gently stroked her hair.

That indescribable, overwhelming feeling settled over her racing heart and Rey finally relaxed.

 _I hurt Finn_.

He didn't stop touching her but she could tell he was not sure what to say. _I know you care for him._

 _I do. He said some hurtful things, too. But I used the Force on him. I hadn't realized I'd done it until I did._

 _You are so strong in the Force, Rey. You are more in tuned with it than any other person I've known._

 _Even Luke?_

 _Yes, even Luke._

 _Even Snoke._

 _So much more than Snoke._

She wanted to ask about that but her mind kept trailing back to Finn's hurt expression before he left her.

 _He wants to protect you._

 _He doesn't have to. I don't need him to. I can protect myself._

 _Oh?_ And here his tone shifted to something lighter, almost playful, _You think you need to protect yourself from me?_

 _What! No! I didn't mean that._ She shifted so that she could look into his eyes. _You won't ever hurt me, Ben._ The air buzzed around them, saturated in the Force. She felt such surety, as if this were one of those premonitions the text wrote about.

Ben closed his eyes as he leaned his forehead against hers. He seemed to be soaking up the sensation all around them. His deep breaths soothed the rest of her anxiety as it puffed against her hair and skin. She could sit here forever and be perfectly content.

 _What if Finn never understands?_

He chuckled softly as his cheek nuzzled hers, _He will. If I have to prove to him every single day I would no sooner betray your trust than cut off my own hand then I will._

Tears prickled at his kind words. The whirring of the Bond, the buzz of the Force in the air, Ben's hand wrapped around her own, he cheek against hers, their breaths in unison, it all encased Rey in that protective, safe, _warmth_ that she had come to understand as something the Force had blessed Ben and her together.

When Leia had asked her to dinner, one of her precious moments with Ben, Rey wasn't sure she should go. This was time for him to heal his relationship with his mother. He never really talked about everything they spoke about, but Ben never left her with the impression he disliked spending time with Leia.

In the end Rey agreed; she learned never to say no to the General.

And it had started off fine, even wound up pretty fine in the middle. She loved hearing stories about Ben. Leia knew her son in a way Rey would never know, and there was a squirm of jealousy in the pit of her stomach when she thought about that. So she gorged herself on these stories of young Ben, with his awkward ears and inquisitive nature – he sounded so unlike the confident, powerful man he was now.

And then she knew exactly when things flew out of everyone's control. He seemed to be doing better, when Han was brought up he hardly flinched and the little stutter in their Bond told her he wasn't agonizing over those hidden wounds. She was so proud of his progress; he was healing.

But then, Leia made a small comment about Ben, perhaps a comment every parent might have said about her child at one point in time. And it ripped Ben's soul asunder!

" _I was quiet; I was_ good _."_

Rey cried for Ben that night, not for the first time.

They left Leia's rooms together and once more camped behind the generator in her garage. She held him, stroking his hair gently in the same way he had comforted her before. The mechanical whirr of the Bond buzzed around them in that same warmth she now associated with Ben's touch. For nearing two hours they neither spoke nor moved away from each other. His long arms wrapped securely around her waist, keeping her close while she pressed her palm to his pulse and stroked his silky curls away from his vulnerable face.

Two hours passed and they were deeply entwined in the Force, their Bond, and their bodies before the first stirrings of the Resistance base involuntary brought them out to see what was going on.

The Rebels were back from their mission.

But it didn't feel like a victory.

Rey knew Ben had reasons for disliking this mission. She knew he knew things no one else did. And yet she had wanted so badly for them to win this war and finish it.

As she watched Vice Admiral Teek order Poe to kill one of the Stormtroopers, she realized something was wrong with the Resistance. They were letting fear and anger take them from their purpose.

She desperately wanted to save them all.

And Ben nudged her away from their secret alcove to show them just how she could save them, how they could save themselves.

She made sure the First Order members were taken care of, not like how they left Ben alone that first night. She provided all the comforts she could, blankets and a hot meal.

Before she left them the general, the young woman, called out to her. "Will you torture us?"

She frowned, "The Resistance does not allow their Prisoners of War to be treated thusly. I understand you have lost a great deal tonight. Please, try to rest." She didn't think the words were very comforting, but the woman's face melted into relief regardless.

It wasn't until late when she returned to her stone hut perched on the edge of the base, closer to the forest with the silver trees and the dark purple and green leaves. Rey had worked so hard on their huts, bringing the stones to the place she picked out herself with the Force. To anyone asking what she was doing she would answer _practice_ and no one questioned her after that.

She hoped Ben liked having his own space. It wasn't large and he was not a small man, but perhaps with time and with the knowledge she was right next door he could perhaps come to like it. Although her hut was adorned with a few attachments she made sure Ben's was left free for him to decorate as he wished. In one makeshift corner of her hut were a momma porg and her fledglings. They usually camped on cliffs, to teach the little floofs how to fly early. But these two fledglings where born too small, their wings at an odd angle.

Ben had said their bones were broken.

So she salvaged them and their momma and kept them safe.

There was something about living among the earth, the stone, and the trees that greatly comforted Rey, as she hoped the little floofs were comforted by their momma. She could feel that pleasant buzz from the Force itself better over here than when she was in the facility. She reasoned that pleasant buzz was the same for Ben.

She was wrong.

There was something very wrong. The wire connecting them whirred in irritation as if she burned herself on a weak electrical current. It stung and annoyed her just on this side of ignoring it. After several hours of the same burning, stinging of the Bond she finally pulled herself out of bed. She had hoped Ben would call for her, just as she had asked for him to comfort her after she last spoke to Finn. And yet, he never once called out her name.

Well, if he wouldn't go to her, she would go to him.

And for a long time she sat with him, until the sun rose and together they watched it rise over the treeline while Ben promised that when he could talk to her, he would.

They never got the chance to talk.

The Council ruined everything.

Terror and rage twisted the wise men and women who represented the Republic of Old. They were supposed to think for the good of everyone. How was Ben mindsweeping the First Order men and women supposed to be good? How could that act of the Dark Side act for the Light? How could they have voted on such a thing?

How could Leia have allowed such a thing?

Anger settled in Rey heart that day for the man named Teek. As she leaned over Ben's unconscious form, teeth bared, eyes narrowed, when she pinned Teek to the opposite wall with the Force, Rey came to a profound understanding of what made good men and women turn to the Dark Side.

And as she sat with Ben, watched him sleep through his fatigue, she thought she learned what it might take to bring someone back to the Light.

After all, no one was ever, really gone.


	5. Chapter 5

**Hello lovely readers! I am so very sorry that I have been away! I moved and well…it took ages to get that sorted and internet up and all that jazz. If you have not given up then please leave me a review~ Anyway, I am back; my internet works; I am not leaving you alone again!**

 **Onward, Lovelies!**

The light hurts.

That's Ben's first thought. Pain. He's so accustomed to pain. He's so expectant of it that he doesn't flinch, just as Snoke trained him, and he pushes his way through unconsciousness and into awareness forcibly. It isn't pleasant.

When he sees a rather large room with white walls he knows he's not on the _Supremacy._ There was a very specific decorum followed in the First Order: black, with more black, and maybe some chrome, with only the top-of-the-line equipment at all times. This was not that.

First of all, there is no black. The few beds lined along the walls are repurposed durasteel wielded crudely together with white or white-ish bedding. The floors are light gray, the equipment functional but half a decade outdated.

Ah, yes…he is far from the _Supremacy_.

Although one of the beds a few down from his is unmade, he appears to be alone. The light is softer now that he has time to adjust to it. Perhaps it's the middle of the night?

The warm lump next to him lets out a tiny groan and _snuggles_ against his body. And then, only then, does Ben look down at the sleeping girl _cuddled_ in the small infirmary bed with him.

Her hair is a bird's nest, a right mess, her mouth is slightly open as she dreams, her delicate hand is clenched in one of his so tightly and it's so hot he wonders why he only noticed it now. As he traces the lines of her face, the curve of her shoulder with his dark eyes, he remembers how he got here.

 _Everything hurts_. Not as much as he expected, but a dull ache that encompassed every single inch of his body. With slow, careful movements, Ben lifts the worn blanket and sees… _nothing_. He could have sworn at some point he'd been shot…Perhaps that had been a dream? But…

No.

The blaster bolt wound is gone as well.

Ben touches his side, wondering if the dull lighting is playing tricks on his mind.

But…no.

There is no mark on the left side of his body, no fresh blaster wound, no poorly healed bolt wound, not even a bruise. There is nothing. He touches the unmarked flesh again in wonder this time. How?

Resettling the blankets Ben hears the shuffle of someone coming into the room. A young woman walks in, lumbering and yawning as she stumbles into the unmade bed. When she sits on the edge her blinking eyes seem to finally notice him staring and she lets out a little squeak as she falls flat on her back as if to scuttle away.

"I didn't mean to frighten you," Ben's voice is quiet but rough from disuse. How long has he been out?

"Wh-what?" the woman sits up again, but she fidgets as if she means to flee at any moment.

"I didn't mean to frighten you," he tries again, just as quiet but it sounds less mean. Rey stirs slightly against him, her hand loosening just the slightest bit from his grasp but she does not let go and Ben threads his fingers through hers to keep her close.

The woman glances from their hands back to Ben's face. "Oh! Uh, no, you didn't – I mean, I wasn't frightened." She finally seems to decide what to do with her body and she folds one leg under her, facing him – settling in to chat.

Her face suddenly relaxes into something…eager and Ben wonders if maybe he should have pretended to be sleeping when she shuffled in.

"You're Ben, right? It's nice to meet you! I've heard so much about you!" She speaks quietly, for Rey's sake but so quickly he cannot get a word in. He is fine with that. "Poe comes by to check on me, Poe Dameron?" she checks and he nods letting her know he knows Poe Dameron, then she's off again. "He comes by and keeps me updated and told me you were here, the long dead son of General Organa!" at his mother's name, her pitch heightens and he flinches as Rey shifts again once more, but she does not rouse.

"Oh!" she whispers loudly, "Sorry! So Poe's told me you were here, no longer dead!"

"Why would he think I was dead?"

She scoffs, "Because _everyone_ knows. I mean, we've all heard the rumors. Kylo Ren killed the General's son. But you're not dead, so that's good."

Ben reels at this, _murdered by Kylo Ren_?

 _Your son was weak, so I killed him_!

Didn't he though? Wasn't that his first lesson by Snoke? Kill the weakness inside him; kill little, mama-boy Ben. And that's what he told his father on StarKiller.

And now…he's not dead. He was revived by a few short moments across lightyears and by a scavenger who did not know when to quit. Ben strokes the almost too hot, flesh of Rey's hand. It's like their bodies are fusing together. He doesn't mind.

"Was it true? Were you held captive for the last decade by the Frist Order? And now you're helping us fight them? All those years their prisoner and now you can use all the info you gathered and turn it against them. And did Rey really save you?"

"What?" He doesn't understand what the girl is talking about and what he should tell her. Apparently not everyone knows he's Kylo Ren. How could they _not know_? The entire Council knows! Dameron knows. Finn knows. Isn't this the very kind of gossip that flies through the ranks like wild fire?

"LT Connix, she comes by too," the girl chatters softly. "She said Rey found you and saved you!"

He looks at the sleeping woman; their hands clasped across his chest while she _snuggles_ closer again, her body warm and comforting in the way the blankets are not.

"Yes," he says. "She saved me." All he had to do was jump off a cliff.

"Oh! I'm Rose," the girl says with a bright smile and an enthusiastic wave. "Rose Tico. I use to be an engineer." Her smile is wide and cheery, youthful in her round face. Her black hair sticks up in every direction adding to her childlike features.

"Use to be?"

"Yeah," she shrugs, still smiling, "I've been in the MedBay for like a month now, well, like a couple weeks, but it feels like a month. You know? So I don't know what I'll be doing _if_ I ever get out of here cause the Resistance runs on people who can get the job done. And if you can't do it they get someone who can." Her smile slips as she falls onto her pillows with a huff.

"What happened?" He cannot see anything outwardly wrong with her.

She gestures to her right leg, the one stretched out on the bed. "On Crait I did something stupid – but I don't regret doing it!" She rushes that last part a little too loud but Rey doesn't stir at all this time. How could his Rey be so exhausted? The other night is vague and hazy but he thinks he remembers most of it.

Rose is talking again and he looks back at her. "Sorry. I did something reckless and I got hurt. Like _badly_ hurt. And my leg's all messed up. It doesn't bend right." She grimaces and Rose has the kind of face that no matter what expression she makes it ends up looking kinda _cute_ – like the way baby loth cats are even when they try to growl intimidatingly but only end up squeaking, entirely unthreatening.

Inwardly Ben frowns at himself. Did he really just compare this girl to a wild kitten? Did he just think of another human being as…adorable?

Rose is talking once more and Ben likes the distraction she makes to his muddled thoughts. "It's been so _boring_ in here all this time. Finn, Poe, LT, and some of my old crew come visit me but it's just me at night and I hate it." Then she props herself on her elbow as she turns to him. "Then you and Dr. Kalonia and Rey bust in here and it was like watching an old holo-drama or something! You didn't seem to be dying but Rey was crying like you were and gods!" she giggles, "She curled up next to you and passed out right there." She points to the empty chair next to his bed.

"The next day she was in your bed and no one has been able to separate you since!"

Since? Since what?

"How long have I – we've been here?"

Rose smiles again, sitting up and fidgeting with excitement now, "Three days."

Three days? He looks at Rey once more and now he sees there is an IV bag connected to Rey as well as himself. "Rose," he calls her attention once more, "has Rey been…unconscious the whole time?"

"Yeah," the smile drops and her dark eyes land on Rey. She cares about this girl, Ben can see. "They say it's exhaustion. That she hasn't been sleeping well. Which Dr. Kolania said about you, too, a few times.

Ben grows cold. He closes his eyes and traces the golden ribbon of the Force Bond and finds it thriving, thrumming solid, stronger than it has ever been before. There doesn't seem to be any actual wound or harm that he can sense in the Force but there is something…a flow that wasn't there before…a path suddenly open from Rey to him. It's…It starts and ends between their hands.

Ben carefully, reluctantly begins to pry his fingers from Rey's. She doesn't stir, doesn't resist. When he removes his hand from hers the flow of the Bond shifts, like a river finding a new path, it flows with a different rhythm than before as Rey sighs on a sweet breath before turning and pressing her back against his side. She curls her body inward to make herself as small as possible as she tucks her head into her chest, her hands fisted loosely in front of her face.

With one more sigh she stills once again.

Ben flexes he hand several times.

"Huh," Rose comments, "that's the first time your hands have come apart. Dr. Kalonia tried to wake Rey up the day you came in, a couple hours later. But she couldn't do it. Finn tried to but…" she bites her lip before rushing on, "lots of people tried to wake Rey up or you but it was like both of you were somewhere else. General Organa said it was the Force healing you."

She keeps talking but Ben can't hear her.

 _Force-healing?_ Had Rey tapped into a power not even he nor anyone he knew could? Ben knew Force-healing was a neutral skill, neither Light nor Dark, but something incredibly difficult to master. He wonders if even Snoke could perform it; if he had he never shared that talent with Ben.

But Rey? With no teacher? How? How could she be so powerful, so raw and untrained? Ben curls around Rey protectively, brushing her hair back carefully, taking strands and untangling them methodically, reverently. He sorts out the mess while Rose makes another small squeak before she stops talking altogether. And maybe, if Ben hadn't been so caught up in his amazement of this wondrous creature that even bothered to look at him he would have said something kind to Rose.

But all Ben's being is focused utterly on Rey.

Without her feeding the Force to him through her, Rey wakes the next day from her three-day coma with no harm done. Unfortunately, that meant, under the watchful eye of the good doctor, she now has to stay in her own bed next to Ben instead of sharing one. Both Rey and Ben seem embarrassed by what occurred while unconscious but also strangely mournful that it could not go on. And as for the Force-healing Ben says she achieved, well, he said they would talk about later.

Rey misses the touch of Ben, and on some level her body remembers sleeping next to him and yearns for it once more. It is simply his touch that soothed her and comforted her. She wants to curl up beside him and sleep there, always. She wants to wake up and smile and see _his smile_ in the light of day just before the coming hours swallow them up.

Rose had giggled at her as Rey sat restlessly in the bed between Rose and Ben, and Ben politely tried to pretend he had not heard it. Rey never felt this kind of embarrassment before. It is a sudden need to explain herself, when no explanation was demanded, when she knows truly that she does not owe anyone any such explanation.

And yet, the _way_ Rose giggled at her… Rey knows she is missing something, like one of Poe's dirty jokes. Rey snickered as all the others guffawed but frankly she had no idea what was so funny about it all most of the time. She knows that the joke is lewd but beyond that she doesn't get it.

There is nothing lewd or coarse about her feelings for Ben. She likes his company. She likes the warmth of him as he held her. She likes the strength of him when he touched her. She felt _safe_ …and all the amazing feelings of every good moment to every happen in her life all warped up in Ben's arms.

And now she feels like those feelings should be _controlled_ , _silenced_. The doctor, kind though she is also meddled and hovered and made sure Rey stayed in her bed and should she sneak her way back to the safety of Ben's arms, then _Ben was blamed for it_. And for the life of her, she could not understand _why_!

"How are you feeling?" He is soft-spoken in a way she never heard him before, hesitant almost. Not in the way one speaks to animals they expect to run off, but in the way someone speaks of something awe-inspiring, like the way some of the Mames spoke of the Force.

The Mames had been prostitutes, there were men too but Rey wasn't sure if they were called the same thing. Mames could not scavenge for one reason or another, disfigurements, poor health, weak bodies brought by a sickness that didn't heal right, and other such things. They traded sex for portions, for safety. The House was one of the few actual buildings at Niima Outpost, and that's where the Mames worked. It was a four walled structure, safe enough from the elements and from scavengers.

 _Everyone_ knew better than to mess with Madam Min and the Mames.

When Rey was young, after the first year of her enslavement, when she was trying so hard to be good, she ran errands for the Mames. They had adored her when she was little. And, Rey is not sure, but she thinks, no – she knows those women were trying to protect Rey from _their way_. But when she used to run for them, they told her stories and sometimes, not always, but sometimes Rey would take her payment in these stories because they were enchanting, lovely things. Canvases were painted in the words Torlik would use, or in the sweet melody of Savvanas's songs, or the different voices Pea-bek ornamented each of her characters. Little Rey would sit with these Mames when no one had to be anywhere else. These women who always wore bright, flowy clothes that seemed too loose on their thin frames would weave wonders to little Rey. Dangerously too loose clothes, she had always wondered, if they were trying to scavenge; but Torlik's legs didn't work right after both were broken and healed wrong and Pea-bek was missing her right hand (born without she had said), so they could not scavenge and therefore could wear whatever they wanted.

And the Mames told little Rey about the wars of years and galaxies past, about brave and wonderful people who saved others and beat a tyrant. There were adventures and marvels of places beyond deserts that were more dream than reality. Heroes and heroines, Princesses and Scoundrels, and sometimes there was love and sometimes there was heartache but those were not yet things little Rey could understand. They spoke of violence and victories, great joy and sorrow, and the Force. And there was always a gentle hush when they spoke of the Force.

Ben seems to be adopting the same gentle hush now, but it sounds completely different coming from his voice. It draws Rey in like a moth and a candleflame. Hypnotic and natural, like the ebb and flow of waves.

"Rey?" he tilts his head ever so slightly which causes his rather wild, dark curls to fall against his cheek and chin.

"Yes?" she stirs from her musing, from the slight daze this new gentle hush Ben speaks with seems to settle on her.

Rose giggles behind her again. She blushes again. Ben politely pretends not to notice again.

"How are you feeling today," he tries for a second time.

Rey clenches her hands, stretches her arms and back, and wiggles her toes. Apart from the slight tug of the IV drip, she feels perfectly fine. "I'm ready to be out of here!"

He gives her one of his rare, small smiles. "Soon, Major Kolania said she's running the last of the tests and we're out of here before dinner."

"Oh!" Rose exclaims. Rey has grown used to the woman's seemingly random outbursts. "You smiled!" But now turns on her in sudden alarm.

Why she's alarmed she could not say. But once more the cloying need to explain Ben's smile away when no explanation is asked for constricts her lungs. For his part, Ben blushes and Rey watches in fascination as his ears tinge pink as well.

"Yes, that is a thing people do." His voice, however, is dispassionate as if speaking to some underling in the First Order. Or the way he sometimes speaks to Poe, much to the other man's amusement when he had been in here earlier to check on all three of them.

"No, no, I'm sorry," Rose is also quick to apologize even if she has nothing to be sorry for. "It's just I haven't seen you smile before and, you know, it just surprised me."

"I'll endeavor to not startle you with smiles in the future." Rey smirks at him over her shoulder where Rose can't see. He always sounds so polite to Rose but it feels like, in some small way, he was making fun of her as well. As far as Rey can tell this is the nicest he has been with anyone beside herself and his mother.

"Oh! By all means, keep smiling!" there is that giggle again and Rey turns away from Ben quickly. "I'm so jealous!" she also has a habit of changing subjects when they suit her, "You'll get to leave and I'm stuck here."

"What exactly is wrong with your leg?" Rey asks. As soon as the words leave her mouth, she wishes to stuff them right back in. Talking with people in "easy" conversation as Poe calls it is not her forte.

But Rose hardly seems offended; very little offends Rose. "When I saved Finn, I suffered some 'tendon trauma,'" she air quotes, "and now the tendon is in some kind of stress stage where practically every time I walk to the 'fresher it reacts as if I'm beating it with a sledgehammer." She had regaled them both with her tale of crashing a First Order shuttle to Crait, joining the last remaining fighters on the sand fields, and then her crazy but heroic display to save Finn from self-sacrifice.

"Muscle traumatic disorder," Ben clarifies but Rey still doesn't understand. "Her muscles act as if constantly perceiving a threat and are in a continuous hyper-state of tension."

"That sounds about what the doctor said," Rose grumbles.

"That sounds really bad," and Rey knows that's not enough but doesn't know what else to say.

With a shrug Rose answers her unthought question, "Eventually the muscle disorder will pass, but there will be all this tissue damage my own body is doing to itself." She clenches her firsts, "I don't know how long I'll be in here or what my leg will be like when I get out."

"What about a bacta-tank?"

She scoffs, "Yeah, lemme just haul a bacta-tank from the core colonies here," then she snorts, "the Resistance doesn't have resources like that!

"And besides," she sighs, "the doctor doesn't think it'll do much good. It's a _mental muscle disorder_." There is no hiding the bitterness in her tone now.

Rey looks at Rose's leg as she lies haphazardly sideways across the bed on top of her covers. It's bandaged in a thick wrap from thigh to ankle. For a long moment, while Rose chats and Ben responds, Rey thinks.

They didn't talk about it, but before Dr. Kolania removed Rey from his bed Ben had taken her hand and rubbed it over the smooth expanse of his completely healed side. Even the bolt wound was gone! Just…gone! His eyes were glittering stones as she had gasped in utter wonder. The Force had healed him, through her!

And now, as she sits there thinking Rey wonders if she could do it again.

"No."

"I'm sorry?"

"Rey," Ben clarifies for Rose, who he had interrupted to answer Rey's unspoken thought. "No."

"Why not?" she frowns at him.

"It's dangerous. You were in a coma for three days."

"So were you," she mutters as she turns her attention back to Rose's leg.

"What? What are you talking about?"

Before she could answer her question Ben growls, "No," once more.

"It isn't up to you, is it?" he blinks slowly and grimaces. But that wasn't fair to him. "I don't even know what I did last time."

 _Please_ , she sends through their whirring Bond that seems to be buzzing at twice the efficiency it had before their trip to the MedBay.

 _I don't want to see you hurt_.

 _You'll be here the whole time. You can help me._

 _I don't know how to heal someone, Rey. I've never known anyone who could. It's dangerous._

 _If I'm to learn how to use the Force, don't I need practice?_ She phrases that rather specifically, to cater to his scholarly nature.

For a long time no one speaks whether out loud or in private, not even Rose who realizes something profound is going on between the two and does not wish to tear into it with useless chatter.

Finally, _Very well_. And Rey grins at him before she jumps off her bed to seize his hand.

"Thank you!"

"You have to ask for permission first, Rey."

"I did," she snaps, still too happy to be irritated with him.

But his deep chuckle brings her up short and makes her insides squirm. "Not from me, from Rose. You have to ask for permission to use the Force on someone."

"You don't," she doesn't mean anything unkind with her words, only stating facts.

"I'm working on it," he shrugs and allows Rey to drag him over to Rose's bedside.

"You are being very weird right now," the woman says as she pulls slightly back, "and it's kinda freaking me out."

"Rose," Rey is a bright, shining light with her sunny smile. "I want to try to use the Force to heal you. Would you be alright with that?"

"Wh-what? You can do that?"

"Theoretically," Ben starts but Rey cuts him off.

"I'm still learning, but I've done it once before."

"Is…Is that why you were in a coma?" There's a fierce concern in the small, youthful woman's face Rey feels might be directed at _her_.

"It was my first time, and the wound was old." Well, there were two wounds actually and she didn't even know she was doing it anyway. But Rey doesn't tell her any of this.

She is still connected to the IV, well rested, and Ben is right here with her. She squeezes his hand. "Could we try?" she asks again.

Rose looks at Ben, "Could something…bad happen?"

He shrugs one shoulder carelessly, "Your condition won't deteriorate. At worst nothing will happen at all."

"What about to you two?"

Ben looks at Rey and back to Rose, "It could be a demanding process that could exhaust one or both of us. We'll just need to sleep it off."

Biting her lip she nods, "Ok, Ok, let's try this. What do I need to do? Sit here? Or should I stand? Lay down? Do you need to touch my leg?"

Rey's smile is outstanding, "I can put my hand on your leg and you can lay just like that." She does so and Rose clenches her hands.

 _I don't know what I did last time_ , she confides.

 _Deep breaths, always start with deep breaths. Think about what you want to do._

 _I want to heal Rose's leg._

 _The muscles and tendons of the leg,_ Ben clarifies _._

She closes her eyes and feels the Force flow freely through her, much more easily than any time before. Her hands begin to grow warm. She thinks about the muscles under her hand, the meat of Rose's leg. She sees the trauma there like a drop of black ink in a glass of water. It is fluid and illusive to her grasp.

She almost grows frustrated but she feels Ben squeeze her hand. _Listen to the Force, Rey. Feel it move._ With deep breaths she listens and feels. It comes easily even though the words and the actions seem almost impossible to equate. Like a sleek predator the Force traps the squirming stain, contains it, and a soft light bleeds into the water now, clearing out the ink.

When the ink is entirely gone, Rey flutters her eyes. The lights are too bright and she feels uncomfortably feverish and sweaty. But Rose's eyes are wide as she bends and moves her leg every which way. She jumps out of bed and bounces on the balls of her feet, kicking her knees high before she runs to one side of the room to the other.

Ben is practically carrying Rey now as she laughs along with the healed woman.

"That is amazing!" Rose cries.

"I'm so glad," Rey says softly as she turns her head into Ben's chest. He swoops her up and now officially carries her back to bed. It feels good, like the fuzzy remnants of a pleasant dream. She hums against the taunt skin of his neck. His grip tightens for a moment before he tucks her in like most children were – not little Rey.

But apparently she gets tucked in now.

She mutters to him, "I feel so tired." Ben's gaze droops once, twice before he crawls up into bed with her and she snuggles right up against him, curling her back to his chest as she takes one of his arms and wraps it around her so she can hold it like a dear toy. He looks just as worn as she feels.

"Sleep, Rey," he commands in a rough, quiet, hushed voice that fills Rey with tingles and forces a smile to her sleepy lips even as she drops from consciousness.

This time they only sleep for a day and a half. When Ben wakes, Rey has been removed to her own bed. The sinking, drowning weight of disappointment is astonishing considering she only lays a mere few feet next to him.

Swallowing the odd feeling bubbling deep in his gut, Ben makes his way to the refresher. He closes the door and takes a moment to bask in the surrounding darkness of the enclosed space. Here he doesn't have to worry about walls closing in or ceilings collapsing on top of him. Here he can simply soak in the black and the dark and not have to be anyone or do anything.

He only takes a moment, a few breaths before he waves his hand over the motion sensor lighting and blinks against the bright bulbs. Once his needs are met, Ben lifts the worn tunic he was provided to witness the flawless expanse of his left side. He stands there for a quarter of an hour merely admiring Rey's devotion to the Force before he frowns. The hand holding his tunic looks…odd.

The electrical burn he received when he was first making his lightsaber is…missing. It had been a small thing, a little bigger than his thumbnail on the fleshy part connecting his thumb to his hand, and it had been near white with healing and he had been so pale one could hardly notice it. Yet in the harsh lighting Ben detects its absence. He examines closer at his hand and realizes the kyber-burns across the back of it are gone – wiped clean as well. When he had first ignited his weapon, the port vents he created to stabilize the cracked crystal burned him; it had been his first lesson in taming the blade. It was one of the reasons he wore gloves at all times.

But now, there are no such marks to track his…achievements? Was that the right word? Progress, perhaps?

Ben rips the tunic off his body and flings it away to scrutinize what else had been erased. The knife wounds from when he and his Knights first begun to train crisscrossing up and down his forearm, gone. The Rope Leech bite marks that wrapped around his elbow and bicep, a special treat of Snoke's for his eighteenth birthday, gone. The lashes he received for every moment of mercy young Ben Solo suffered that traced the muscles of his bicep and shoulder, gone. The three deep scratches that marked of his victory against a nexu displayed across his pectoral, gone.

It is as if his whole left arm and side have been dipped in pure bacta.

Ben traces the now unblemished flesh in quiet, barely contained awe. He can't even remember the last time his arm or his chest was so…unspoiled. Absently, he wonders if it was during his time with Luke, for there are scars missing from a broken wrist when he fell from a tree, gone. Yet he still cannot remember what his own form looked like without its topography as rough as a mountain range.

Ben's dark eyes meet his mirrored self and he realizes he's breathing raggedly, glaring hatefully, and suddenly he comprehends he is _upset_. No. More than that.

Ben is enraged.

She had no right – _no right_ to take what was his and erase who he was.

In so little time she was _unmaking him_ , reshaping the broken pieces into whatever _she_ wanted.

She had no right.


	6. Chapter 6

**And because I have been away for so long, I am gifted y'all 2 chapters! And this is my longest chapter yet! Don't forget to hit that review button and let me know how I'm doing! Reviews are life and they keep me going~**

He is avoiding her.

At least, she thinks so. But she can't really tell. It's subtle. Small. Maybe it isn't avoiding at all? He seems to have recovered before her after that second healing and is gone by the time she woke late in the day. She assumes Dr. Kolania sent him out to avoid crowding the Med Bay.

Only…Leia and Rose show up (even though Rose is dismissed after a few more tests) and marvel at her newfound talent.

And…Poe and Finn visit her and take her to the chow hall that night.

Later…although she knows he is in the hut next to hers, Rey an sense he is not sleeping. The wild sensation of a sandstorm that disturbed the Force his first night in his new home is no less unsettling this night; yet Ben does not escape and she therefore cannot find it in herself to disturb him in his own hut.

It is supposed to be his space, just for him, and he hasn't invited her into it, yet.

The next day she sees him at the Council meeting, since he left before her and they could not walk there together. He doesn't meet her eye and it feels as if she wasn't in the same room with him. He looks…like he _owns_ the new Council room. A round decently sized table takes up most of the space with mixed-matched chairs placed around it. The table is outfitted with an inlayed display for 3D projection and focal integration. If Ben touches a planet, the display zooms in and starts spouting facts in an endless stream off to the side. It is by-far the most sophisticated piece of tech the Resistance has and Ben is a natural with it.

Rey watches mildly enthralled as Ben begins the meeting with "damage control," he calls it. Or, more adequately, dealing with Hux's response to their attacked on the _Conqueror_. Without looking at her he assigns Rey and (to everyone's surprise) Finn to deal with the prisoners. No torture. No interrogations. Only the well-being of their POWs.

Although she is glad to help, Rey can't help but wonder if he is pushing her away.

Her only consolation: the Council actually follows through with their word.

As Ben monitors and goes about strategizing in a way she's never seen him before, the others _listen to him._ General Ematt always asks questions, but they seem to be the right ones because Ben conceds a few points on one of his plans to raid supplies at a cache the First Order hid in the Mid-Rim. Vice Admiral Teek jumps in to undermine Ben at every chance, but it's as if his words merely hit a brick wall…or more appropriately, the words are absorbed into the wall. Outwardly Ben hardly reacts to Teek, but inside Rey knows he is holding something…not back…more like… _ready_. Ready for what, she can't say.

Regardless, Ben knows how to call forth the others when they were needed, such as Lieutenant Shoveks in Finances, or newly minted Captain Connix now in charge of Supply Logistics as well as Emergency Readiness Management along with Communications. The young, lithe women stands strong a head shorter than Rey but her sharp eyes take in everything.

Another surprise, Ben is _good_ with numbers. He rarely needs to be reminded of statistics or prices and doesn't require assistance with conversions or multiplication, apparently completely capable of solving equations in his head. At her place at the table, Rey couldn't help but wonder at the way Ben speaks, the way his large hands maneuvers the display, how he steps back and lets the experts of their fields, like Lieutenant Shoveks or Captain Connix, take over when they need to.

She is breathless with watching him work. He makes such an imposing figure in his new deep blue shirt, the sleeves neatly rolled up his arms, the wide neck showing just a glimpse of his collar bone. His pants are dark gray, maybe once black at some point with the many deep pockets of the mechanics, and tucked into the high quality First Order boots he came with.

Had he been like this with the First Order? Had he stood there among his generals and his knights and swept his arm out when he meant to make a point? Had he stood tall with his arms crossed as one of his own expressed concern?

It is powerful standing so close to a man like Ben when he is in his element. His confidence bleeds through the Bond and she suppresses a shiver at the sensation.

For one brief moment his eyes meet with hers and for one breath it feels like the sucking _pop_ of the Bond connecting them through lightyears.

Then he looks away and Rey is left with a disorientating shudder that almost makes her knees buckle. She feels…alone.

After the meeting Ben declines her request to read from the Jedi Texts. He says the preparations of their mission are important and he needs to focus. He says she should start her new job and take care of the First Order members. Although he appears distracted with a datapad and doesn't use any particular inflection to tell her otherwise, Rey thinks he is dismissing her, like a Stormtrooper.

But before she can call him out, he turns down a hall with Lieutenant Shoveks and Poe at his side. Then he is gone.

She doesn't understand what has happened between them.

"He asked for me? _Me_?"

Rey smiles at Finn's aghast expression, "You were one of them, once."

A frown marks her dear friend's face. "Maybe he thinks they'll turn me back."

They never speak of the dark day in Rey's garage. She is equal parts thankful and worried by the unspoken decision. Finn's been with her since her release of the Med Bay, but never alone as they are now. He eats with her and Poe and Rose but it's never just the two of them.

Now, as they walk side by side to the jail cells, Rey senses a tension in Finn's body she's never noticed before. She also knows there's nothing she can do about it, and hates that this is what they are right now.

"Or maybe, he thinks you can turn them." Quiet though her words are, Finn whips his head to look at her with wide, incredulous eyes. "Maybe he just wants us to understand one another."

That pulls Finn up short. "What if…" Rey looks back. "What if…" he shakes his head, lost in memories he never talks about. Gently, she takes his hand. She knows he takes comfort in the gesture and even with so much not said between them, he does so now. "What if I _know_ them?"

With a small smile Rey answers, "Then that might be a good place to start."

Finn doesn't know any of them, and Rey feels his profound relief in that knowledge. He is more terrified of his past than he lets anyone know.

After making sure everyone is provided rations and water Rey stands before the young general's cell.

Copper hair that coils around her soft face, with intelligent eyes to match, skin lighter than Finn's but darker than Poe's, with muscles toning her arms, and a straight-back, no-nonsense, poise that reminds Rey so much of Ben, the young general looks formidable in such a small package. She is several inches shorter than Rey but has the sharp gaze of a neru. Although Rey has never seen one in person before, she imagines this woman and the feline monsters have a great deal in common.

"We were never properly introduced; I'm Rey," she begins.

The woman looks at her with a quirked brow before she sets her meal aside. Primly she sits on her cot with her legs pressed close and her back board-straight. Her hands fold neatly in her lap as her bright eyes level with Rey as she sits in a chair outside the bars.

Her voice is strong and eloquent like Ben's as she answers, "I am General Inigo Munin."

"Inigo…Mewnin?" Rey tries to pronounce the name carefully.

"General Munin," the woman requests. There is no superiority complex here. She earned her title, for a woman so young she wants desperately to hang onto it. Rey can read all of this in her surface thoughts without having to dive into her mind.

"If you wish, General," she nods. "Are you and your fellow soldiers comfortable?"

Before she can speak, another office speaks from a few cells down, "You lump us in with the troopers?"

Rey's eyebrows rise. They are all of the First Order. She hadn't thought they would mind that she paired some of the officers with a trooper. Even the general had the highest ranked trooper with her. Rey had tried to show some form of… recognition to their positions. Ranks meant a great deal to the First Order, everything and everyone in their place.

"You are all prisoners of war now," Rey turns back to the general, "and you deserve basic human kindness from the Resistance."

"You call this kindness!" shouts the man once more.

"Lieutenant Jerrin," General Munin's voice is soft but powerful and with just his name she has silenced him.

Rey tries not to show how impressed she is. The man is twice her age but his body snaps as if to salute but he stops himself at the last minute and glares instead at Rey.

With her burning copper eyes, General Munin turns her attention back to Rey. "We are provided for and have not been mistreated in anyway. I suppose we have you to thanked for that?" she cocks her head to the side and her curls swish with the movement. "Who are you in this war?"

Rey cannot fault her. She must look like…well, a desert rat drowning out of her depth. There is a slight twinge in the Bond but it evaporates like smoke when she tries to reach out and feel more of _him_. Is it a coincidence or did he deliberately pull away from her seeking?

"I am Rey of Jakku," she doesn't have a title beyond that. The realization hurts. She is no Jedi, no general. She is no senator or lawyer or doctor. She doesn't have experience in war.

She is no one.

She is nothing.

 _Rey_ , his voice almost sounds chastising, like the tone one would take with a wayward pet. _You are something to me_. There is a pause because surely he means to say more. Surely that isn't his big peptalk to help her speak to this important woman…Surely he doesn't mean to leave her alone…

 _Rey, you are irreplaceable to this Resistance. You are…_

"And I am a Rebel." There is warmth that fills her being as Ben says the words with her. Before she can thank him he is gone again just like smoke, just like before. Perhaps he is busy. He must have split his focus between helping strategize and helping her. She knows which is the more important of the two; she just wishes she didn't have to share him.

The woman sniffs before she clears her face of emotion once more. "Rey the Rebel," there might be a hint of disdain but it is so faint Rey chooses to ignore it. "And what do you plan to do with us, Rey?"

The woman notices her hesitation. "We don't plan to do anything."

"Nothing? Nothing at all? No interrogating?"

"You don't have anything we want."

"No torture."

"We don't torture people."

"No ransom."

"That's barbaric!" she cries at that last one. Why would she have the First Order pay for their people? They are not slaves!

General Inigo Munin suddenly laughs. It is disorienting but not mean. Rey sits there with her cheeks burning because although the tone is not harsh she knows she is being laughed at.

"Oh, they have sent a child in to weaken my resolve!" She pulls back and smiles at Rey. It is not a mean smile, but it makes Rey feel uncomfortable. She _pities_ her.

"You are so…untouched by war Rey of Jakku." Her young face softens here. "So misguided by the way of things. You cannot keep us here indefinitely."

"Why not?" she does not sound piqued – she _doesn't_!

"You cannot keep us here because we have no value to you if you do not mean to ransom us. If we escape we will tell the First Order of your location, your members, your faces," her eyes shine, "your names. So you cannot let us go one way or the other."

"We've gotten away from the First Order plenty of times before." Rey shrugs. "If you are released, we would be long gone before you have the chance to raid this planet." At that quirk of her one brow again, Rey leans forward. "And the First Order knows my face and my name very well."

It had been released while she had been sleeping that Rey had murdered the previous Supreme Leader with the _assistance_ of Kylo Ren. There hadn't been a chance to talk to Ben about those strange accusations.

General Munin wipes away her cocky brow, "So what, you plan to keep us here? Feed us? Clothe us? Like we are to be your caged pets?"

Something squirms inside her gut. Rey does not like the analogy. It appears to amount to the same thing, doesn't it? They would be taken care of, _basic human kindness_ ; she said it herself. But they are still trapped, dependent upon the Resistance.

A thought fills Rey's mind completely, latching on and bursting through her sight just as when she had taken Luke's lightsaber the first time.

Is this…a vision?

The Resistance is running, fleeing, like rats in an alley they scurry and flee and scream while Tie-Fighters rain acid green from the sky. Dirt and fire fill the air while people die one after another after another while some manage to escape and the Rebel ships limp off into the darkened sky.

But below the fire and the dirt and the death there is General Inigo Munin sitting primly in her cell while the walls shake and the floor quakes and the ceiling falls.

Rey gasped as she falls out of her chair and onto her hands and knees. Finn is there, saying things, asking things, but she can't hear him. Her eyes are lock on the First Order general's and there is shock as she watches the lithe woman struggle to breath.

Their deaths…Rey looks at the rows and rows of men and woman now under her care…their deaths would be her fault.

She waves Finn off and pulls herself back into her seat. She struggles to control her breathing and there is a subtle prod through the Bond. This time, Rey shoves _him_ away. He is too busy dealing with the important stuff for her to bother him with something she had been put in charge of.

Once more composed, Rey knows what the Force is telling her. She could save their lives, but this is the moment to do it.

"Tell me, General Munin, where are you from?"

They spend hours talking. Rey and Inigo, she really prefers General Munin but after the fourth time Rey slips she lets it slide. They discuss Inigo's home planet, a core planet, and Inigo's scrap from urban gutters to the pristine FO academy. At first she speaks in short, clip sentences that answer Rey's questions and not one inch more. But as time slips by, the woman relaxes with a soft expression as she speaks of the younger sisters she left behind, her dependents the Order provides for.

There is both a severe loyalty and distinct difference Inigo uses when she speaks of the First Order. She believes she would have never gotten herself or her sisters out of those cold alleys where they picked trash if not for her Aunt's connections that got her the interview with the academy. However, there is a reserved judgement in her tone as if the First Order can hear her every word even now.

And surrounded by the other officers, Rey thinks she isn't too far off.

When prompted, Rey shares her own experiences on Jakku. The woman asks questions like a surgeon with a scalpel. Nothing she says is mean though, nothing condescending. Sometimes there is a recollection of respect in her eyes as Rey tells of her life.

She knows she is loved by some and held in a high regard because of her Force-sensitivities by others, but she's never been respected before.

Maybe the last time she saw it is from Han? Ben respects her, though. He doesn't show it in the quiet way Inigo does, but Rey knows Ben respects her a great deal.

After the long hours, at this point many of the officers are involved in the conversations as well, Rey bids goodnight and leaves with Finn.

Their "plan," if they have the liberty to call it such, seems to have worked pretty well.

Rey distracted them, the Jedi girl everyone's heard so much about, while Finn spoke to the Stormtroopers off to the side. They integrated the two on purpose, but there still seems to be an unspoken gap between the ranks.

"How'd it go?"

Finn smirks, "I mentioned who I was to a few and some of them didn't even know I had defected."

"Really? How could they not know?"

"I'm like this best kept secret!" he sounds so pleased by this. "There were rumors but no one really knew anything. Now they know." He puffs out his chest and Rey giggles.

"So, did you ask them?"

He deflates, "It's too soon. I told them what I had been doing, helping the Resistance, saving people. Some of them seem receptive to it. Most of them are unsure. I guess since none of them called me a traitor in front of the officers, I should be grateful."

With a hand on his shoulder for a few seconds, Rey grins, "We'll try again tomorrow. You hungry?"

"Yes please!" He crows as they move down the hall together.

Once they make it outside Finn's voice turns quiet. "I visited you in Med Bay."

She doesn't know what to say. It might be the time to use her manners Leia has been helping her with. But somehow, _thank you_ , doesn't feel right for the tone.

"You and… _Ben_ …" there is venom in the name, "you seemed close."

Rey bites her lip. "I learned to use the Force to heal him." It's what happened, yes, but it sounds like an excuse. Why should she need an excuse for what happened? They were both unconscious. It just happened!

He turns to her in surprise, "You can really do that?"

"I only just learned it. Ben helped me channel the Force."

"Right, right," he snaps his fingers with a grin, "You healed Rose, too!"

"We did."

His expression sours again, " _We_?"

"I couldn't do it alone. Ben helped me heal Rose."

"He helped you…but you didn't need help when you healed him."

She scoffs, "Of course I did." Her frown deepens. "Finn, he isn't evil. I know he made some terrible decisions. And they are going to haunt him for a very long time. But he's _trying_."

The silence is wide and gaping and she feels so alone walking with her best friend.

"Are you…mad?" She finally asks.

"What!?" He pulls her to a stop. "Rey, why would you think that?"

"Because I used the Force on you!" and now she has to say what needs to be said before they pretend it didn't happen. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to. It just happened. I was upset and you touched me suddenly, and I'm still trying to get used to people touching me. That's not an excuse!" She hurries to get it all out and she isn't sure it's enough.

But Finn laughs.

She swallows her next words and stares at him dumbfounded.

He laughs and laughs and it's warm and sweet and welcoming and brings a genuine smile to Rey's lips as it grows infectious, even if she doesn't understand.

"Rey, stop!" he says even though she isn't doing anything. "I'm not mad. I understand. I was angry and I scared you and…" now he pulls himself together and holds out his hand and waits for her to take it. "I'm sorry, Rey.

"I…I'm afraid of Kylo Ren." She knows this means so much, him admitting something he wishes he didn't but he trusts her. "And I let fear make me do something stupid." He shakes his head. "Poe has been telling me from pretty much the second day Ben showed up that he's ready to work for the Resistance. I mean, he's been talking nothing but praise for how…clever he is. Poe says it's scary how fast his brain works."

With one more squeeze he lets Rey pull her hand back and they start walking again, side by side. "You see the good in everyone. Even Kylo Ren. Even me."

She doesn't have to ask what he means. Finn had wanted to run far away from the war. He is done with fighting and blood and death. He made no promises to join the Resistance when he defected, and yet Rey knew he could do good things.

As they enter the chow hall, Rey immediately notices Ben at a table, alone. He has four datapads spread out in an arch on the table around him and one in his hand that he seems to be completely immersed in, an empty bowl sitting forgotten just out of reach.

Focusing on his datapads, he doesn't raise his head and Rey feels like she shouldn't intrude on him working.

But Finn grins at her, "Come on."

They gather their trays and food and she follows Finn as he maneuvers around the haphazard table and chairs and boisterous individuals. It isn't until he's setting is tray down diagonally from Ben that she realized he was heading this way all along.

She's nervous and hot and she doesn't know why.

Ben flicks his gaze up and manages to contain his glare at the last second as he eyes Finn. "What do you need?" it's guttural as if he hasn't used his voice in some time and while it isn't a demand it has the flavor of one.

Finn sits, "This spot taken?"

Ben's gaze grazes in Rey's direction but he doesn't meet her eye or acknowledge her in anyway. "You may do what you like." He goes back to the datapad.

Rey sits next to Finn to avoid looking foolish as she stands there with her tray. "Have you eaten?" she glances at the lone bowl.

He shrugs. It isn't an answer. Dark eyes bounce from the pad in his hand to one on his left. He swipes through both pads before he moves onto another. There is a calculated flurry to his movements as if he has too much energy stored up for the task.

"So we spoke to the officers and troopers," Finn tries.

"I know." Ben's voice holds no emotion.

"Don't you want to know how it went?"

He doesn't even look up, "You were sent to talk to them. I already know they don't have any useful information."

"Right." There's a bite to the words now but he still pushes through. "But you said Rey and I specifically should talk to them. If you think they have nothing important to say then why bother sending us down there?"

"Because you care."

Rey stops the fork halfway to her mouth and frowns. What does he mean by that?

Perhaps sensing her question Ben continues. "You are the epitome of what every Stormtrooper secretly thinks about – I would know. You are something of a novelty, a rumor brought to life. They'll be interested in what you have to say."

The din of the chow hall seems to have hushed…Rey cannot believe what she's hearing. "You want Finn to _turn them_?"

Ben looks up from the pad in his hand and sears Finn with his complete and undivided attention. She feels the shiver of nerves that slithers through Finn as he meets this powerful man's eye. "Yes. I believe you can free these men and women from the First Order." For one breath, one of Ben's because Finn is not breathing, he holds his gaze before he blinks and returns to the reports and endless streaming data.

Finn deflates and there is relief rippling through his surface thoughts. "That…I…It might take some time. No one even knew I had defected!"

"Oh," he doesn't sound concerned in the slightest, "Perhaps not the _Conqueror_ do to its location, but believe me others know you are fighting with the Resistance."

"But _how_?" Ben snatches the farthest pad from him and swipes expertly away until he's found what he's looking for before sending the pad to Finn.

Rey leans over and gasps at the news feed.

"I…I have a…there's a…"

"BEN-REN!" Poe's usually infectious joy booms throughout the hall.

Rey smiles at the pilot as he makes his way through the crowd. He stops to shake hands, slap shoulders, and wink at one or two lucky ladies before he slides right beside Ben. She cannot help but notice the tolerated tense smirk the other man graces him.

Since when did they become so close? And what is that _Ben-Ren_?

"Hey!" Poe exclaims as he notices what Finn's looking at, "congratulations!"

"I…"

"He's in shock," Ben shrugs Poe's arm off his shoulder as he replaces one pad for another.

Poe laughs, "No sweat buddy! It happens to all of us our first time, too."

"Have…"

"Did you?" Rey grins.

Poe shakes his glossy hair out of his face. "You bet! I thought I is gonna pass out when I first heard."

"A…"

"Really?" She puts a finger to her chin in mock thought, "I don't remember acting like that when I heard about mine."

"Well, yours is entirely justified!" Poe accuses with a matching grin. He turns to Ben, "What about you? Ben-Ren? Have you seen yours?"

He huffs and seems to be double checking something between two datapads with a twitch to his eyebrow. "It doesn't interest me."

"What?!" Poe cries out as if insulted.

"Guys…"

Poe turns back to Finn, gentling his smile. "Buddy, this is great news!"

"I HAVE A BOUNTY!" Finn looks almost gray as he shoves the datapad away from him.

Ben snatches the pad with the Force and places it back in its original spot after deleting the news feed from view. "See, all of the First Order knows about the rogue trooper now."

"Rogue Trooper! Hey! That can be your call sign!" Poe is back to grinning, his elbow back on Ben's shoulder.

Seriously, when did they become friends?

"Finn, you okay?" Rey tilts her head towards him.

He shakes his head but his grin is so large, "Yeah, yeah. It's just a lot to take in."

"Well," Rey leans back smugly, "like Poe said, totally justified!"

They laugh and poke fun and Rey can't remember enjoying herself like this with other people before. She looks up and this time catches Ben's eye.

He's a brewing storm. Dark eyes glowering, dark hair coiling, muscles tense, hands in fists, his body a tight spring, compacted, barely contained.

And she feels his anger for the first time since they fled the throne room together.

In that moment, the world and all of reality melts away and all that is left is she and Ben. Like back on Ahch-to, when she could see none of Ben's surroundings, now she literally can only see Ben. Everything else is a smeared, gray blur.

And all she feels from him is white, hot fury.

Suddenly the dreamworld snaps away as Finn shakes her shoulder. "Rey, hey, come on, it's late."

She blinks several times and looks around her, back in the chow hall, surrounded by a hundred people; Finn and Poe are bouncing their stares between her and Ben. Heat splashes across her cheeks and neck and she looks away before that annoying need to explain herself when she knows she doesn't have to comes up. She stands abruptly and before anyone can stop her, she takes her tray and runs.

"What is that about?" Poe askes the company in general but Ben knows he's directed the question at him.

"You think she left the Med Bay too soon?" Finn's concern makes him sick.

Poor, poor Rey. The manipulative, clever loth-cat. Whenever something's wrong it's always Ben's fault. Even now, he can feel Poe's gaze on his face as he rereads the material Captain Connix sent to him. Finn is glancing between the Rebel and his old superior and even he seems to be placing judgement.

Ben nearly growls.

He sent Rey off with the ex-trooper to…appease his _weakness_. He hated to be away from her, hated that he is angry at her. So to offset his raging emotions he set it up for the two of them to work together. Although he didn't understand the attachment, he knew _Finn_ is important to Rey. Just like the smug pilot glaring holes in the side of his head, or the BB droid that zipped and rolled around like a loose puppy without any supervision.

Apparently, it hadn't worked. He is still furious and now he is being blamed for Rey storming off.

He is glad she is gone. Being angry with her is like a knife twisting in his gut, but having to see her sweet face and listen to her strong voice and _know_ that she is unmaking him is so much worse. The knife is still there, jerking with each thought of how she is destroying him, along with his heart clenching like every breath is his last, the tendons in his arms straining like they could snap any minute.

The Dark is close, closer than it had ever been in a long time.

How could she do this to him?

"What do you think, Ben-Ren?" Poe's glare sharpens. The knife snakes in a little deeper.

Finn's eyes glitter with a meager portion of bravery. "Did you say something to her?"

This time he does growl, "I have not spoken to her since the meeting." His dark eyes glare at Poe, "and you were there for that."

"Well something is wrong."

"Then go figure it out," he snaps at the ex-trooper. "You're her _friend_." The word is like poison and it blisters his tongue. "Some of us have work to do."

Poe slams the pad in his hand to the table. "You're her friend, too."

With a scoff he levels the Rebel with his best icy glare. "You are wrong, Poe Dameron." He is nothing but…well…he's _at best_ a curiosity for her. Something for her to take apart, like one of her little machines. He is no better than a droid!

Except she cares for the BB unit more than she does for him.

"I'm not wrong," his voice does not waver as he shoves a finger into Ben's face. "She cares about you and something's going on. Fix it." Grabbing the front of his shirt, Poe growls, " _Now_."

Ben sneers and flicks his fingers, sending Poe sliding down the bench and even farther to leave him sprawled on the floor. Finn and several others evesdropping rise suddenly. By the time Poe is helped to his feet Ben has gathered his work and is already walking past him.

"Do not touch me again, Dameron."

Clever, little loth-cat; she has everyone fooled. They love her, and he knows why. She's beautiful and kind and treats everyone the same. Droids, soldiers, warlords, Dameron, Finn, even the officers of the First Order, he's sure; they are all the same to her.

They all fit neatly in her little world.

Except him.

He doesn't fit. So she's making him fit.

A square block in a round hole.

He can't stand to look at his body now. The flawless stretch of skin on his forearm and back of his hand grates on him all day. A brush of fabric that didn't catch, a handshake that didn't unnerve the other party, even his own touch feels _wrong_. It isn't _his_ hand; it isn't _his_ body. Even the vague lingering pain of the Rope Leech bite that used to buzz at the back of his head is gone. It's as if the man who accomplished all those things to earn all those marks never existed.

He had to have been that man.

He had to have been real.

Serval hours later and Ben still snarls and storms. The knife still screws itself deep and the anger burns the back of his throat. His reports are complete, his tasks followed through, and he already sent out the list of things the Council is supposed to check with him in the meeting tomorrow. There is nothing else to occupy his thoughts.

Nothing to do but return to his shack right next to hers.

She's there. Even though he's blocking her he can still sense where she is.

Not a moment of peace, never just a Force-forsaken moment of peace for him!

He slams the door to his small space and takes a moment to breathe, to settle, to hold back the tide of fire.

The walls are starting to close in again.

He bares his teeth at them. _Stop it._ It isn't real. It's never been real. From the moment he met eyes with a woman in a single pod she sent herself to him, nothing has been real.

Or…before that?

When had he allowed delusion to guide him?

 _You are not alone…Neither are you…_

He screams. His fist collides with the stone and still the walls grow closer and closer. So he screams again and pounds a pristine fist that is not his against the cold stone. Again and again, as his vision blurs and his heart clenches and his breath fails him.

Something dark marks the stone.

 _There! That_ is him!

"Ben!" She is gasping at the door; the last of the fading light haloing around her. "What are you doing?!" She takes two steps because the space is so small, so suffocating before she snatches at his arm that is not his own. "Ben, stop! Please stop!"

Why? Why stop? If he stops the walls will kill him. If he stops he will see a body that isn't his, see a world that isn't his. He will be a man that isn't himself. So, no, clever, little loth-cat, he won't stop.

The dark smear grows. The walls still suck in, suck the air from his lungs.

"BEN!" The name is in his ears, in his head, in the Force itself as suddenly bright eyes with more green than brown are in his sight and his fist freezes just before it meets with those eyes.

"B…Ben…" tears stream down her cheeks.

Oh, poor, poor girl.

"Please," she reaches up and takes his bloody fist from the air. With no effort at all she unfurls his fist and presses his palm to her cheek. "Please," she begs, "what is happening?"

"You did this," he spits. Although the words are harsh, his body deflates. "You did this…"

She presses his palm closer. "Did what? Tell me, Ben." Tears burn the wounds on his knuckles. "Talk to me, Ben." Her desperate words strum the thread between them. She implores him a third time, "Please, please," her words a feeble whisper as tears pour over his hand. " _Ben_."

His dark eyes pin her with his fury, "You've done this. You've broken me, shattered me. I wasn't good enough before, never. And you took what was left, what you deemed worthy, and now you're making me something else."

Her wet eyes widen and he rips his bloody hand away. "I spent half my life creating myself. If my parents were never satisfied I would fulfil my own design." He takes one step away because that is all that's allowed. "I became strong, in body and in the Force. I made myself formidable, fierce. People were afraid of me because I _earned_ their fear. Because I was not afraid of anything." He clenches his fist once more before losing the anger again.

"Ben," her tears are silent, her voice a rough whisper, but the Force weaves through her words. "Kylo Ren is a monster created by Snoke-"

"No," he growls the word at her, more animal than human. " _I_ made Kylo Ren. Everything he is, _everything I am_ I decided." He grabs the flawless skin of his forearm. "Every scar is _mine_ , every stitch of clothing, every hard-earned praise, every achievement I owned; all of it is _mine_. They _make_ me, Rey." It is the first time he utters her name and it breaks something inside of him.

The knife finally pulls out, leaving him bleeding. His heart finally bursts and agony flows through his veins.

He gasps as he clutches his chest. Rushing to him, she catches him as he falls to his knees.

" _Everything_?" she still does not understand.

He pushes her slightly from him and rips his tunic over his head. With a blush she looks away, little loth-cat, but he waits until she turns back in curiosity.

Her bright, burning eyes widen further. Her slender fingers trace the unblemished flesh of his pectoral were the neru had left its mark, before trailing over where the bolt scar had been, the new blaster scar should have been. Her eyes flick to his in question before falling back to his shoulder, and leaving a path of fire and her hand wounds around his oozing, bleeding fingers.

"I…I don't…"

"I wasn't good enough. Tainted by the Dark Side, poisoned by the man I made. I would have never been enough for you, right?" Why is he asking for her confirmation? He knows it to be true. His parents were the same.

"I left _everything_ for you! I protect _your_ Resistance now even though I don't believe in them. I fight for them, provide for them. All because I know it is what _you_ want."

"Wh-what?" something breaks inside her as well. "You never…you don't believe in them?"

"I didn't join the First Order because I was an apprentice to Snoke," he snarls the words, feral in her confusion. "I joined the Order because I thought they were the best bet to bring peace to the galaxy.

"When you asked, I left everything I believed in, everything I _earned_ , everything I had _mades_ to follow _you_ , just you. I don't give a damn about your Rebels. I only give them enough attention to keep them from killing themselves because it would make you sad if they died.

"But I should have known," he shakes his head, ripping his hand from hers. He is dying. _This_ is what dying must be like. He would know; he's been brought so close to death too many times. But what Snoke had done to him is nothing like this. This is infinitely worse.

"I should have known you would have tried to fix me. I'm never enough for anyone." This is slow and decaying and painful. Why can't he just _die_ and be done with it all?

He never sees it coming. His anger blinds him and his self-pity mutes his ears. When his dark eyes meet hers, she is breathing hard. Still crying but the burning green of her eyes are full of retribution this time. His cheek stings, a swelling whelp blooming where her palm struck true. For several long minutes they hold their breaths as their eyes burn.

"Damn you!" she snaps. More quiet tears. "Damn you, Ben Solo!" and it is as if she slapped him once more. "How dare you?!" her voice is no longer a weak thing. It vibrates the air around them as she gathers the Force unknowingly. "How dare you tell me I'm destroying you!"

"Aren't you?" He roars, and he doesn't know why he's asking.

"I'm not! Why would I unmake the man I met across the fire? The man who reached back when I held my hand out to him – why would I break him?" Her breath hitches as she takes in a broken breath. "Why would I think you're stained? Spoiled? When I asked you to come with me?"

Her eyes rove over his cleaned skin, "I wanted to save you, Laser Brain! I only thought about saving you! I couldn't control…" she waves her hand towards him and he sees that it is red.

"Ben!" And finally he snaps.

Rushing forward he takes her in his arms and holds her as she sobs.

"You would choose that life, that lonely life in space, surrounded by people who hate and fear you than be here with me? All the _things_ ," she spits that word like a curse, "they mean more to you than freedom? Than choice? Than…" her sobs wreck her and he presses her closer.

"Rey…"

"What do you want, Ben Solo?" She pulls back enough to glare at him. Burning eyes bright, she challenges him. Wild, quick loth-cat. "Do you want to leave? Because if that's what you want-" she shakes her head as more tears fall. "If you want to leave, I won't stop you."

He stills as if she used the Force.

"What do you want?" for several long minutes, maybe hours, he watches her as she glares with all the power of a supernova. No…a dying star…because when he doesn't answer she falls in on herself, her grip failing on his forearms. "What do you want?"

Ben thinks.

What does he want?

Why is he so upset with Rey right now? Because she healed him? Because the ache in his arm is no longer there?

"Ben," she seems to feel the turmoil boiling inside of him. "You've makes decisions I may never understand. You've done things that you cannot take back. But don't think of one Force-forsaken second that I don't care about you! Don't _ever_ think you could be replaced."

 _You are not alone…Neither are you._

"What do you want now, Ben?"

"I," his mouth is dry, his bloody hand pulsing in time with his heart that isn't so broken now. "I," he feels his spine straightening, his snarl retreating, and his grip on Rey tightening. "I want…" he stops.

 _Listen._

 _Feel._

The Force flows around them, through them, in the Bond and in his mind. What does he want?

"I want to make you _proud_ , Rey." Truth sings with his words but it's not enough. "I want to atone for the sins of Kylo Ren. I want to _heal_ the galaxy, abolish slavery and protect children in the Outer Rim so they don't ever have to suffer like you did."

Her smile banishes what self-torture is left inside him.

"I want to see my mother find peace and rest. Her life has demanded much from her and I didn't help; she deserves rest."

Her hand brushes his hair from his face and presses against the redness there – a red smear on a white canvas, not so pristine now.

He smiles. "I want to lead with respect, not fear. I want to show the galaxy that there can be peace without fear. Oh, Force, Rey, I want to be a _good man_."

He falls into her at the same time she rises to meet him. His forehead lies against her shoulder, while her fingers comb through his wild curls. One of his hands wraps around her waist as he feels the barest brush of her lips against his temple. His bleeding hand finds her free one and they entwine their fingers even though it hurts just the slightest. Pain is such a remote concept right now.

With Rey in his arms, the air fresh and clear between them, the Dark Side no longer clouding his mind, Ben feels _right_.

He breathes her scent in deeply, soaking in the pleasure of her touch.

"Oh, Ben," she sighs softly, "You can do all of that. No one will stop you!" her voice trembles suddenly, quieting further. "Least of all me."

Oh, his sweet girl!

"Rey," he pulls back only just to catch her eyes. "I am so sorry."

She shakes her head, "Ben, you never tell me what you're really thinking. This whole time I thought you were here of your own accord but you shackled yourself to what you thought I wanted."

He almost protests but the fingers in his hair reverse course and press against his lips. "Let's be honest with one another, Ben, always. I didn't know you held me in such high regard as if your very reason for being alive is because of me." Tears spill from her beautiful eyes again but this time he catches each one with his free hand.

"That's too much a burden for one person, Ben." She bites her lip before she continues as if considering not saying what she says next. "I want to be with you, Ben. I like the way I feel when I'm with you. But I will not put that desire over what you want." The pads of her fingers trace his lips before curling around his head and cradling him as if he were something treasured.

"Rey," he sighs in equal parts relief and… _joy_. Her words elate him! It is a feeling so foreign he almost can't think of the right word to describe the lightness inside him. The tearing pain in his stomach is gone, like the Rope Leech bites.

How could he wish for such a scar? That had not been an accomplishment…Snoke had…punished him that day…

"Oh, Rey," he presses his forehead against hers "I want to stand next to you every day until you grow sick of me and cast me out." _Never again_ , he swears to the Force, to their Bond, _never again will I make you feel less than!_

She giggles, the warmth of his promise spilling over, "Be prepared to be with me for a long time, Ben Solo." It doesn't sting as much this time, what with the indescribable _joy_ filling him.

He chuckles, "I never went by that name, you know."

"What?"

He nuzzles his skin against hers, wondering how he thought he was strong enough to go a whole day without touching her. "Solo. I never went by that name."

"What did you-?"

"Organa. My mother hyphenated her name after marriage and since my father rarely attended political functions I was always referred to as Ben Organa."

"Oh!" she blushes. "Ben Organa," she tastes his name and he grins. It is pure bliss to hear his full name fall from her lips.

"Tell me, Ben Organa, why aren't you sleeping?"

He tenses but relaxes with his next breathe. _Let's be honest with one another, Ben, always_. If he were ever honest with anyone in his life it is Rey. He swore to never lie to her, hadn't he?

"The walls," he admits, "I feel like they are closing in on me, that the roof is collapsing on top of me. I can't breathe."

She gasps as she looks around the little hut as if she could see his vision. "Force, take me!" she swears. "Ben, I'm so sorry."

"Why?"

"I didn't think – when I started making it – I'm not bad at lifting things with the Force, but I'm still not great at it. So I thought something small would be better. It makes me think of the place on Ahch-To, the fire and… _us_." She blushes as she hides her face. "But it's too similar and I just – it never occurred to me-"

"Rey," he brushes stray wisps of hair from her face. "Slow down."

Her eyes flicker back to his, "Oh, Ben, I'm so sorry. It's too much like Luke's academy. Isn't it? You're reliving that horrible night and I didn't think!"

What..?

He looks around the small space with new eyes, with Rey's eyes. The walls closing in, the roof collapsing…Luke standing over him with his lightsaber raised high. Oh, his precious girl!

"Yes." His whisper is too loud. "I didn't realize, but yes…"

"I can fix it!" she cries out suddenly but immediately reverts into herself once more.

 _I should have known you would have tried to fix me._

The words echo through the Bond and he realizes he's made her feel… _ashamed_.

"No," he calls out the word firmly, with all the authority he's ever mastered in his life, bringing her face up once more. "Never be ashamed of yourself, Rey. I'm sorry I made you feel like you aren't enough." _Force, take him! He's so sorry_.

Her eyes glitter as a small smile spreads across her lips. She can feel his apology humming through their Bond. "I…can fix this."

His thumbs stroke her cheeks, brushing away the last of her tears. " _We_ can fix this."

"Yes," her smile grows; her shoulders relax as she grasps his wrists and strokes the sensitive skin on the inside of them. "Together."

"Together," he confirms with that same strong surety.

Carefully, she pulls his broken hand away from her face and holds it tenderly. "But first…" he feels the strum of the Force as she siphons it _through_ him. Oh, he immerses himself in the sensation of the Force flooding him and pouring _through_ the Bond and into her hands so that she can mend him.

It ceases suddenly and he gasps in surprise.

"Oh, um," her wide eyes meet his, "Can I…May I? I mean, I would like to heal you."

Oh, _oh_ , his sweet girl!

"Yes." He grins.

They watch the split skin on his knuckles knit back together seamlessly. Nothing more serious than that and it takes only seconds. Regardless Rey leans into him when she's done, the effort still taking its toll on them both. Not as strenuous as before but they are suddenly tired nonetheless.

"Come with me?" she means it as a question but to Ben it is a quiet demand. He follows her now not because he thought blind subjugation is what she wanted but because he _wants_ to go where she goes and experience all those places have to offer.

She drags him to her hut, leaving the place with his blood staining the wall, where he is swallowed by nightmares. Instead he finds himself in a space only slightly smaller and yet…warmer. The embers provide enough light in the dusk and enough heat, but it's more than that. A colorful blanket covers her cot. Odds and ends decorate her small desk. There's a family of porgs cooing in sleep in the corner. It should feel cluttered but it is all so deliberate. Each piece in her hut hums through the Force with the same signature as Rey.

Together they sit on her cot as she throws the colorful blanket around their shoulders. It isn't the most comfortable, but it is such a familiar position they've shared numerous times before in numerous places. Her body curls as he tucks her against his healed and untarnished left side, the blanket falling around her legs and feet. His cheek leans on top of her head and for the first time since he jumped off the cliff, Ben rests.


	7. Chapter 7

**I am so very, very sorry to be so behind on this story. I got into 2 car accidents at the start of this year, and you can image the stress of THAT alone. But I've also just been neglecting this story. I want to contribute to the Reylo community and want Reylo Endgame so badly for this last movie! I'm gonna stick with this story for the sake of that alone. If you are enjoying this fanfiction please leave me a review! Thank you - W.D.F**

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The squawking of porgs outside his window wakes Ben that morning. Ever since summer they've grown bolder in their presence, seemingly unbothered by all the commotion of the growing Resistance base. And this morning is no exception as Ben growls at the chubby bird perched on the sill, its soulful eyes drilling into him.

With a flick of his fingers he Force- _nudges_ the thing off and takes satisfaction in its surprised cry that slowly fades as it falls.

A smirk dances across his features as he pulls the colorful blanket tighter around his shoulders.

He only receives a minute of bliss as the sun begins to rise and the tell-tale noise of activity of the base finally eases him from his bed.

Yet it is the boisterous Poe Dameron banging on his door that forces Ben to actually get up and face the day.

"Ben Ren!" The Best Pilot cries as Ben steps away from the door to let Dameron in with the resignation of a man accepting his fate and how powerless he is to stop it. "The mission went just as smoothly as you predicted! In and out with no FO's the wiser!" He claps Ben on the shoulder with no regard for personal space of any kind.

As if muscle memory now, Ben shrugs his hand off before pulling his dark blue shirt on. Tugging the hem down, he catches Poe's wide eyes.

"What the hell do you even do to get a bruise like that?" he blinks a few times before smirking, "I can tell you right now, Ben Ren, you're doing it wrong."

With a huff he shoves Poe in front of him before closing his door behind him. "Yeah, I'm sure you think that. But Rey's decided that she needs to learn multiple lightsaber forms. Not satisfied with just one."

"I could give you a few pointers if you're not satisfying her." Again that annoying smirk, a cocked eyebrow, gleaming eyes.

Ben sneers. He needs caffa, he's come to learn, before becoming fully functional to deal with all that is Poe Dameron. Sometimes it feels as if that's not enough. "I doubt you know anything about lightsaber forms."

Poe laughs as they enter the chow hall, patting Ben's shoulder as he waves to a few other pilots. When they take their seats those men and women gather around them.

"It was just like you said!" A female pilot exclaims with bright blue eyes. "We struck the weak points simultaneously and _boom_!" She spreads her fingers wide for effect. "The shipyards of Kuat are officially no more!"

Ben hums in what might have been approval…but he doesn't care. Attacking the man-made scaffold ring surrounding the planet Kuat had been Ben's first order of business when he joined the Rebels six months ago. Back then, he's opinions and expertise had been ignored. Now, the Council actually listened and implemented his suggestions. Four months of planning, an ugly distraction from Red Squad in the Mid-Rim, and the coordination and months of drills for both Black and Blue squadrons were needed to carry out the mission.

It didn't matter to Ben like it did to the Council that Kuat _also_ built X-Wings for the Resistance. It was all about the numbers and the hard truth that Kuat was outputting more ships to Hux than to General Organa. A four month mission, destroying the shipyards, along with all that messy reconnaissance and a secret, underground smuggling (he cringes at the word) operation to sneak Resistance-sympathizers out of the shipyards before the attack took place.

That last bit had been all Rey.

And speaking of…

She wore her hair half up now, her pale gray long-vest flowed around her knees, cinched at her waist with a thin braided belt, as she smiled her way past the semi-large group that had surrounded his table. Her reinforced leggings had been provided from a raid at a Stormtrooper outpost three months back, a prototype of new, lightweight armor before it had been tinted the traditional black for shipping, came in the original bruised purple. Her tunic was a breathable desert-version of the officer's microfiber uniform in dark gray, to which she cut off the sleeve as was her preference. One arm was wrapped in the leftovers of the uniform from wrist to just below the elbow and continuing from above the elbow to her bicep. The other hand was incased in one fingerless glove that enfolded in one single swath of fabric up to mid-forearm. More of the shirt's remains wrapped underneath the glove to almost her shoulder in mirror to the other arm. The material of this particular article was a deep, violet and of the softest, purest sunsatine: the most expensive fabric in all of the known reaches.

Ben had "acquired" the glove while on reconnaissance at Kuat's planetside. He could have paid for it but he was in the middle of avoiding pursuit from a squadron of standard security droids and only had time to see the one glove and take it.

It's twin could have even been discarded by a core world socialite devaluing the article as it was no longer a set.

Rey, however, seemed to treasure it.

Seeing her wear the glove every day, even while doing mundane things the makers of it had no intention of its wearer to use it, held him captive with such joy. Ever since she found him pounding away at the walls of a home she had made for him, trying to stop walls that hadn't even been moving, Ben learned every day more and more things about her that brought a signature, small smile to his lips.

Poe smirked again as he nudge him in the side. It set off a chain of blooming pain from the bruise there, but he wouldn't let the cocky pilot know that.

Carrying her tray, the crowd parted for Rey as if she had used the Force on them but he knew she hadn't. There seemed to be some unspoken, universal code amongst the base that should Rey and Ben be in the same room, everyone else…well…they didn't make _sure_ it happened, but they most certainly never hindered their paths from lining up.

She slid in easily next to him and immediately began eating her breakfast.

The conversation of the mission was just starting up again when Rey let out a surprised sound. "OH!"

"What is it?" Ben paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.

She glowed with her happiness, "This," she gestured to the steaming roll in her hand as she talked around a mouthful of food, "what is this?" There was such an infectious child-like wonder to her tone.

"That would be a sweet bun, Rey." Poe grinned as he leaned over to speak past Ben. He leaned back just enough so she could see him.

"It's amazing!" she grinned in pure delight, a face he only saw when associated with food.

The joy of just seeing her tripled every time he witnessed her wonder at the various kinds of foods in the galaxy. Since their supply raid last month of a shipment to the _Finalizer_ itself, the Resistance had been eating better than it had since the last raid Ben organized five months ago. He always made sure the base never ran low on food.

Fed soldiers always equated to happy soldiers; and the shine is Rey's eye as she took another bit of the sweet bun might have been motivator enough.

The dull roar of individual conversation filtered in and out as Ben watched Rey eat from his peripheral. The crowd dispersed and the pressure at the back of his head eased. It never got better, being around so many people and having them so close. Numbly he finished his own breakfast before Poe nudged him again.

"Do you want to keep that arm," he snapped under his breath.

But Poe was never deterred by his threats, "Easy, Ben Ren. Help me, help you." It was a small wonder that others never figured out who Ben was, what with Poe practically waving it about in everyone's face with that stupid nickname. A nickname that miraculously was limited to only Poe able to use.

"What assistance could you possibly provide?" Before Poe could answer, Rose slammed her tray right across from Ben before sinking into the bench.

"Long night?" Rey asked around another mouthful.

Rose sighed, "The Kuat shipyard mission-"

"Ah! You mean codename: Ben-Ren-page!" Poe snickered at his own joke.

"I wasn't even there."

Rose continued as if they hadn't interrupted, "-finished late and I've been running the engineering squad ragged for the last six hours repairing X-wings left and right." Her dark eyes glared at the blue-eyed woman that always felt the need to speak to Ben whenever he walked into a room. "I swear, Caimbrie has no freakin' idea how to fly without shorting out her fuses."

Her eyes widened before she turned to Poe, "Oh, uh, Commander, never mind! I didn't mean…" She slumped into herself.

"Hey, I'll admit she runs her R2 unit hard and pushes the throttle more times than she should, but she's a decent pilot." Poe shrugged, "But I can talk to Blue Leader if you want."

"No!" her hands shot up and Ben frowned at the way her eyes widened and her voice quivered ever-so-slightly. "No," she calmed herself down and whatever Ben saw – because he _knows_ what he saw – it was hidden spectacularly.

He glanced at Rey but she was too absorbed in the honey and butter of her breakfast. With a smile at her, he decided to keep his observations to himself.

"Um, anyway," Rose shifted as she took a bite of a bright green fruit. "Have you seen Finn anywhere?"

Rey eyed the fruit. She must have missed it in the meal line. "He's probably with the new recruits. That's where he spends most of his free time."

Rose grinned as she pulled another green fruit from behind her drink and tossed it to Rey. She snatched it with loth-cat reflexes and bit into the fruit with a delightful hum of pleasure.

"I see," the woman's grin fell as she deflated once more, picking at her meager breakfast. Ben frowned at a pattern only he seemed able to see.

Around her bite Rey said, "You can go see him if you want."

"What? Me? No," she shook her head adamantly. "No, they're probably talking about important things and I wouldn't know what to say." Her thumb traced the pattern in the fruit's skin before she bit into it again.

"He should be finishing up soon." Ben offered.

Rose's black hair bounced as she looked up suddenly, "Really?"

"He was waiting for you to finish your shift. He should be heading towards the hanger soon." He felt for Finn through the Force before he said anything and shared his findings with her to make her feel better.

Ben was not much of a people person when it came to interacting with them. Statistics and facts he could handle all day, but small talk and emotions not so much. He found that he liked Rose though. She didn't know Kylo Ren or Ben before that. All she knew was that he was the long, lost son of General Organa, thought to be dead, now revealed to have been held captive by the First Order for over ten years.

From a certain perspective these were not exactly lies.

She probably thought he suffered from PTSD from his "captivity" but never treated him with kid-gloves. She avoided talking about the First Order unless he mentioned it first or they were discussing equipment for a current mission. And he liked that she never seemed to run out of things to say, taking a great weight off his shoulders when he realized he didn't have to _try_ with Rose.

Her sunny disposition reminded him of Rey in many ways. There were so few people who stayed so positive during times of war. Something in him wanted to preserve Rose's optimism.

And any mention of Finn seemed to do just that.

Rose tossed her quarter-eaten fruit to Rey who caught it and began working on it since she had already finished her first one before she gathered her tray with a thanks towards Ben and took off. This little network of _friends_ Rey gathered around herself all seemed to understand her unshakable need to never waste food. Ben understood, perhaps more than she would ever realize, but seeing the way the other's readily took care of her needs warmed him and thus made tolerating Poe a tad easier.

"You're such a nice guy, Ben Ren," Poe slapped his shoulder and used it to push himself to his feet. _Tolerate_ , the key word there. "Well, Rose isn't wrong. We got in late last night and I'm beat. I'll catch you at the meeting later."

Rey waved him off with pale green juice staining her lips.

"I guess that leaves you and me," she smiled. A thrum vibrated the thread of their Bond and Ben returned the smile as he looked at her directly now.

He held out a napkin for her face. "It's a bit early but we have some time to kill before our debrief meeting. We can work on forms again if you want."

She wiped the remaining juice as she grabbed her tray and Ben followed. "Not today. I'm so sore I can even sit right."

There was a snicker at the table they passed. Blue Squadron. Caimbrie and three other men seemed to have misinterpreted Rey's comment. Ben made sure to make eye contact with each person, especially Blue Leader, a tall man (though not as tall as himself) with a wild mustache. The snickers died immediately as Ben displayed all the cold superiority he used while staring down the pompous, self-righteous officers of the First Order.

It did the trick, without having to use any _tricks_ at all.

* * *

Summers on Hamliet are calm and clear, interspersed with gold rain: warm sunshowers fill the lazy afternoons with glitter and rainbows. Rey _loves_ Hamliet. Perhaps even more than Takodana, with all its green, she loves Hamliet for its _seasons_. Jakku never changed, except for the storm days. Spring on Hamliet is cool and the white trees with their purple and green, fluffy leaves are tranquil. Summer is full of warm, gold rain that she could dance in, much to Ben's amusement as he watches her from the safety of his refurbished home.

They had worked, as promised, together. Tripling the size of the first huts, they used the Force to first dismantle and then rebuild their homes taking scrap metal from Rey's garage to make a separate slightly enclosed space for Ben's bed. He helped fashion a stained-glass window for her home, heating the molecules in discarded wine bottles Rey had collected and teaching Rey the method as well. It had been… _fun_. Lifting rocks and heating glass and using the Force was actually _fun_ , with Ben anyway.

In front of his scrap-metal door was a little porch and he would lean against the frame with that slight smile on his full lips, his arms loosely crossed, and his dark eyes warm like that brandy Poe let her try. From there he would watch as she flitted through the glittering droplets and together they would sit on his front step and watch the rainbows until they disappeared with the last of the sun.

She _loves_ Hamliet.

And their little clearing in the forest has exploded in vibrant colors of wildflowers that never cease to amaze and distract Rey as she and Ben work with the Force together. There are strands with tiny purple flowers that looked like little bells, bright orange blooms with long thin petals and dark purple tips, neon green clusters of star-shaped arrangements, and pale blue buds that twisted up in the light of the sun but unraveled themselves at night with ruffled, fluffy petals that were so soft to the touch. Rey's new home is filled with dozens of flowers. She can switch out the chosen leaves she kept from Spring with the tantalizing arrangements of colorful Summer.

Never had Rey been given the opportunity to _decorate_ , as Poe calls it.

And Ben indulges in every whim that seems to come over her. Noticing her particular favorite, he uprooted the Midnight Maiden (the nocturne flower) and replanted a branch just outside her door so if she came home late at night she would be greeted with the large bloom. Following his method, she took to replanting a vine that crawled up the back of her home that carried the tiniest white flowers but smelled the most fragrant. A ceramic pitcher he found for her on a reconnaissance mission once that gleamed the most deep of blues sat on her table and in it there was always some wild array of whatever flowers caught her fancy that week.

There seemed to be an endless supply of floras on Hamliet.

Now, as they sit with their fourth Jedi text open between them, Rey weaves the little, purple, bell flowers together in the way Rose had shown her – a pastime she and her sister had indulged in as children. Her fingers thread the strands through and under as her face watches the way Ben's lips curve around the old language. It's the third unfamiliar language to her, two of the texts had been written by the same person and the same useless language, but Ben seems more comfortable with this one than the others. Whenever they came across a new language, Ben took the time to explain the nuances of it. This one is full of vowels and constancies that change the tense of the word while some nouns and verbs have male and female versions even if it is something has nothing to do with gender.

Honestly, Rey could listen to Ben speak all day.

Basic is easy if not crude in its simplicity.

This dead song is…like a sigh of relief, or something equally soothing. Ben says it's because the dialect requires no inflection to make its point known. Even monotone, Ben's voice is captivating.

His eyes meet hers and Rey blinks quickly before looking down at the text. Her cheeks are warm and she doesn't think it's because of the sun. She tends to tan easy, much to Connix's good-natured and disgruntled laments.

"Rey," he has a little lift to his tone now, like when General Organa speaks to Poe after he does something dramatic. "Are you listening?"

"Of course!" she answers as she hides the flowers even though she knows he already, probably, saw them.

Ben smiles that little curve of his full lips that can be more distracting than the field of flowers around her. "Alright, then what did I just say?"

"Um, you mentioned the different ways the Force interacted with people." Right? That's what she last remembers. "Is that why some people are technically 'weaker' in the Force than others?" Perhaps a question would distract him from asking _why_ she wasn't paying attention.

He leans back on his hands as he stretches his back slightly. "That's right. The Force flows through the galaxy, the planets, the stars, even the black itself. It's like a river. Some rivers flow quickly, rushing through, but some trickle by."

"Right!" she smiles brightly at his leisure pose that makes her feel warm and tingly. "And we are one of those rushing rivers!" She still doesn't understand _why_ people were like rivers, but his imagery was still lovely.

"You are the most powerful Force-sensitive I've ever seen, Rey." She likes the way he caressees her simple name with his deep voice. "The way the Force flows through you, well, it's remarkable. It's natural."

"I don't even realize I'm doing it still. Like the…thing when it makes my voice stronger…"

"Force Echoing," Ben supplied.

"Right, that. I don't do it on purpose or anything."

"That why you're so incredible."

Honestly, she could sit here and listen to Ben praise her all week! Maybe it's because she never received any encouragement from anyone except the Mames when she did work for them, but Rey finds herself starved for his attention sometimes.

"I wonder how the early Force Users learned all this stuff." She holds the book gingerly as she changes the subject. Starved as she is, it still made her nervous to be held under Ben focused, dark gaze. Nervous in a good way, but still nervous nonetheless.

Ben sits straight as he takes the old tome and places it gently beside him, understanding their conclusion with it for the day. "I suppose through observation. These men and women lived together, and could watch the way the Force worked with them without biased reactions to Light or Dark."

"Like us?"

He pauses before he turns and looks at her curiously. "What do you mean?"

"We've been learning together for a couple months now and you've never once mentioned the Dark Side. You taught me various combat techniques and forms but you never say which is a Dark Sider's version and which is Light.

"Aren't we sort of learning as the old Force Users did?"

"I," he swallows his first choice, a habit she notices he exercised more and more recently among the other Rebels. "I suppose, in a way, from one's certain perspective you could say we are _dabbling_ in a neutral mindset with the Force." He shifts and rubs a hand over his face.

"It isn't intentional…"

She laughs, "You mean, you would still try to lure me to the Dark Side if you could?"

"No," he takes a curl of her hair and rubs it between his bare fingers. "Never. But I think that what I consider the Dark Side, what you consider the Dark Side, might not be that at all."

"What?" She doesn't pull away, enjoying the intense way he avoids her gaze by seeming to count every strand of hair in his hand.

"I mean, the concept of Light and Dark is all about intent, purpose. What do you intend to do with the power you've been given. The Jedi and the Sith are constructs created to contain those intentions. Those who seek power are Dark and those who seek peace are Light, and the way one would use the Force to gain power or peace are what make them so. Sith and Jedi."

She likes the way Ben could immerse himself in philosophy and theory. It ins't a favorite subject of hers, but she knows these thoughts drive Ben's scholarly brain.

So even though she doesn't think she is equipped to cleverly keep up with him, she indulges him with conversation. "Someone could seek power, ultimately to seek peace."

"Yes," his eyes meet hers with a dark gleam of interest. "Jedi once were powerful voices in the Senate and some even held seats of power in government on some planets. There were Sith who can use Force-healing, a talent deemed only worthy of Light Siders.

"The first Force Users believed the Force was a will of its own. It wasn't Light or Dark. But they believed it ultimately worked for the _good_ of all…"

"With balance," Rey finishes, remembering what Ben had actually been explaining before she had lost track entirely with the lesson.

Ben's smile returns and it dazzles her. "Yes."

"Come on," Rey stands and holds out her hand, "We should head to the Council Room for that debrief now." She doesn't actually pull Ben's large frame up, but he still holds onto her offered hand regardless.

As they make their way back to base Rey flicks her fingers and a crown of pale bell-shaped flowers gracefully lands on Ben's wild mane of untamed curls. He never looks up once, never feels the wreath or the Force and Rey distracts him further by snaking her arm around his and leaning her head on his bicep.

"A little sun sick, are we?" he murmurs gently as he brushes his hand against her forehead.

With a noncommittal hum she grins up at him. "I think this is the happiest I've ever been."

"I'll endeavor to make it last as long as possible, Rey."

* * *

There is abrupt silence that greets him as he and Rey take their spots at the table. Capt. Connix and General Ematt haven't shown yet, but when he stands at his full height while Rey goes to sit beside his mother Ben feels the room lose whatever liveliness it held as conversations spontaneously died and all eyes fall on him.

Or, more specifically, his head.

He knows why. She thought she was so sneaky and clever, his little loth cat. She thought he wouldn't notice the faintest brush of a feather's touch in the Force as she placed her floral creation on top his head. He had meant to remove it before they entered the Council room, but when she took his arm and smiled up at him, professing her great happiness, well, he couldn't really do much more than allow that happiness to continue. Now, could he?

Poe coughs uncomfortably as his eyes widened. He probably meant to be subtle, save Ben his dignity.

But his eyes fall on Rey and the bright joy from their field held firm and true.

"You should do something about those allergies, Dameron." Ben growls lowly, the voice he usually took up when in this room speaking to these people as a group.

"Ah," the man is caught up short as a slightly crazed half-smile takes over his face, "What? Yeah, sure." Instead of helping Ben, Dameron takes a step back and shakes his head in disbelief.

"Um," oh, Crossix was going to try to save him? Unusual, indeed. " Mr. Organa," that's right, no formal address for the reformed Kylo Ren. "It is with all the respect I have for you and what you have done for the Resistance that I must inform you of something." A former lawyer, Crossix sure knew how to speak in such flowery words.

"Of course," he could straighten his posture no more but clasps his hands behind his back.

"Right, yes," he rubs his hands nervously together; Crossix hates speaking to Ben directly. "This is a professional setting of the highest order."

"I understand all of our positions."

"Oh, good. Well, we should be keeping up appearances, wouldn't you say?"

"I agree, entirely."

"Yes, yes, good then. So, you would agree, then, that as a member of this council you must also adhere to these standards."

"Of course, sir. I am a valuable member of the Resistance, a key member of this Council, and to an extent a focal point for anyone else wishing to turn sides for the good of the galaxy." Inwardly, Ben grins. The others are looking between the two men. He so rarely puts the Council in its place. It is good to tweak their noses like this.

"Is there something amiss about my appearance that you find…lacking?"

"What?"

Ben looks himself over and notices a few loose pieces of petals and grass that had clung to his trousers from the field. "Oh! I see what you're saying, sir." He brushes the debris off and nods to the man. "I thank you for pointing that out to me. I will endeavor to keep up professional appearances in the future."

Just as he brushes the man off, the final members they were waiting on emerge and a very un-princess-like snort shakes everyone from their stupor. Connix's mouth falls open as she looks up from her datapad and just before she could blurt out what she sees Poe rushes the meeting to begin. A flash of warmth fills the Bond from Rey's end, apparently quiet pleased with his performance, most likely still thinking she got away with her little prank.

The Council is split in two, not an unusual state for them, during the debrief of the Kuat shipyard. Teek roars in outrage, _Where are we to get our X-Wings now_? and his loyal dog Crossix nods and fumes silently. Shoveks, the stoic, quiet man also seems mildly peeved about blowing up the most notorious shipyard in the galaxy. But since he is a man of numbers as well, Ben could understand his misgivings.

They all have said the same things before, four months ago. It is redundant now, but they seem to have to get this last chance to vent their disagreements.

Dameron regales the Council with the heroic deeds of Red, Blue, and Black squadrons as they stealthily made their way, strategically pinpointed the weak spots of the manmade ring, and destroyed everything. Captain Connix updates everyone the status of the unground smuggling (he wishes they would not use that coarse word) and all persons safely deposited between a neutral planet and one of the new allies Ben had gained for the Resistance.

General Organa spends a few minutes critiquing her Best Pilot, to keep him humble no doubt, as well as allowing General Ematt to take the floor to spread some feel-good speech. Ben doesn't always listen when General Ematt speaks. He could remember the man only vaguely from his childhood, although Ben knows Ematt remembers him.

Rey glows as she soaks in this victory with her Rebels.

"Now with that out of the way," his mother carefully maneuvers the meeting toward other topics. "Ben, you had something you wished to discuss with us?"

He always has several things he chooses to confer with the Council. Today is no different as he starts his list. "I have analyzed and overviewed several key candidates for funding. A few that could even be turned from the First Order itself."

Teek, as he feels wont to do, interrupts him. "You think they will turn on the First Order? We have been after their funding hubs for years!"

"Yes, I know." He grins as Teek flinches. Apparently, he could cut an imposing figure even while adorned in a flower crown – good to know. He so enjoys upsetting this little man. "At the time you didn't have two things. First," he tilts his head to Lieutenant Shoveks, "you never had a man so dedicated to cold hard facts and less about your touchy-feely hope." Shoveks stands a little straighter and smirks.

Unlike Dameron, a fungus one could never truly get rid of, Ben actually likes the tactical finance specialist. His family were all Rebels, but he had chosen to go to one of the best schools of mathematics in the galaxy – only to wind up a lowly lieutenant of a dying rebellion when his homeworld had been obliterated by Starkiller.

When he had made that same offhanded comment to Shovek's face, the man graced Ben with the most self-deprecating smirk with all the snark in the known reaches. He is a man of few words and, unlike Rose, knows he was Kylo Ren but did not hold that against him. They could sit next to one another for hours and not say anything, not even look at each other, and there seemed to be a comradery between them.

The only thing he could compare to it was how he felt about his Knights.

But Ben doesn't think about them any more – he can't.

"Second," he faced down the other men and women and grins fiercely, "you didn't have _me_."

"What are you going to do?" Teek snaps, "Use your Sith powers and _force_ them to yield?"

Ben leans over the focal-projection table, feeling his grin turn positively feral. "I don't need to use the Force to find weakness. I believe Finn can confirm that."

He gestures to the _Rogue Trooper_ , another nickname that stuck, and although he'd only been to a few of these meetings, with Ben's support and Poe's and Rey's encouragement Finn has grown into his place. A place Ben put him in, but a place he'd made his own as well.

"Right," Finn steps up beside Ben as he stands to his full height, "No Sith powers were used when the ex-troopers turned on the FO and joined our ranks."

"Have none shown signs of…deceit?" Crossix asks in his weak, soft voice.

"None," Finn smiles in praise of his little crew. "They are still integrating and have trouble with some of the…less strict policies the Resistance follows. But they are doing well, they support us entirely."

Ben's grin is still smug as he looks down at Teek, "In fact, they said…" he shakes his head, still with a near mad grin, "I forget the exact wording, Finn," and the man still flinches when he uses his name. "What exactly did they say to you just a couple weeks ago?"

"Oh," Finn looks far less pleased than Ben with where he's going with this, "uh, yeah, they said…something like-"

"No," he cuts him off, not unkindly, "do not mix words, now, Finn. What _exactly_ did they say to you?"

With a heavy, resigned sigh, Finn grumbles loud enough for everyone to hear, "Many of the ex-troopers said they would _gladly_ fight alongside the _great_ Kylo Ren, now Ben Organa." He has to spit the last six words out, but does so eventually.

Ben is practically preening, "There you have it. No mind tricks," which is _not_ solely a Sith talent, but no one cares about _that_. "You have me, and I am something of a marvel to some Troopers. Also," he can hear Rey's curiosity purring at the back of his neck while his mother's is an insistent buzzing in his ears, "I know how to _push_ the few funders of the First Order we could potentially turn."

Teek and Crossix know they're beat.

Once they back off his mother, Poe, and Lt. Shoveks begin hammering out plans about where to start gathering credits, while Capt. Connix offers a few freelancers that could provide a new shipyard for their growing need of equipment and machinery to win the war. Finn offers two names of his crew that he thinks are ready for more Resistance work while Ematt shares the nine planets that just within the last month joined the cause as allies.

Even sulking, Teek and Crossix offer suggestions and options to the plans.

As the meeting winds down he catches Rey's eye. She never says much. She believes she is only here to keep everyone in line, to protect Ben should the Council go back on their word. But she is so much more than that. If only he could make her see it.

 _You get to go_ , she even sounds sullen in his mind.

 _You could come, too._

 _I must watch the officers. Something could happen to them while I am away._

He knows she isn't wrong. After one of the officers attacked a trooper in his cell, his mother had the troopers and officer entirely separated. It helped with Finn's mission to save them from the First Order, and in a way helped Rey with hers. She knows these people, now. She knows their homeworlds, what their favorite parts of each planet are. She knows about their loved ones, children, siblings, spouses, parents. She knows about some of their struggles, their dreams, what they had hoped the First Order would do for the galaxy, how they wished to be a part of such a change.

He worries about his caring girl some nights as she shares what she learned with him, her eyes sparkling and her hands gesturing wildly as she retells their stories. She attaches herself to people, people she barely knows, suddenly and easily.

And yet, Rey is formidable with the Force. It has taken care of her, enveloped her in its favor. There is no need to worry for she could glean their intentions, whatever darkness they harbored in their heart before any of them did her harm.

One morning a week after the officers and troopers had been separated, two of the officers had committed suicide in their cells. Rey had not been the one to find them, but he will forever remember the morning she burst through his door like a hurricane. Her hair wild, her eyes frightened, she called out to him and he immediately took her in his arms and held her until the fear had passed.

She had known something was wrong, she just didn't know what.

She had held a funeral for the two men, allowed the officers to attend. She organized the entire thing – with the assistance of his mother. And now, the four officers remaining seemed to have formed some sort of attachment to Rey as well.

General Inigo Munin in particular held Rey in the highest regard. Ben avoided showing face to the officers, unlike with the ex-troopers – as he had done to help them ease the overwhelming… _everything_ that was unmasking oneself from a helmet for so long. The officers, however, were entirely different. That didn't mean Ben hadn't sat outside the jail doors and skimmed through their surface thoughts, to double-check no one meant Rey any harm.

From the general, in her mid-thirties and resilient as durasteel, he had picked up such a cool sensation of utmost respect. It soothed any misgivings he had for putting Rey in such a position while solidifying his intended purpose for sending Rey specifically to handle the officers.

 _I like that you take your duty so seriously._ He smiles softly at her across the table as people start filing out.

 _You are the same_ , there's a blush to her cheeks as she looks away. _I still don't know exactly what you think I can do just by talking to them._

He knows she's thinking of the two who died. _That was not your fault. And you underestimate the power of a kind word, a true smile. Were these not things you craved for on Jakku? I know I had wished for such things before the Darkness seemed to be all there was._

Her bold eyes trail back to his and she smiles brightly at him.

Poe, as he inevitably does, ruins the moment, as he was wont to do, by stabbing him in the ribs with his elbow once more.

"I _will_ take that arm, Dameron."

With no self-preservation the man grins, "I've been trying to get your attention. You too busy to come to COMM with me to hail Chewbacca?"

He huffs, "I have nothing pressing at the moment. However, we both know he will not get any messages until tomorrow anyway, with that asteroid field scrambling his comms. Must we do this _now_?"

"Come on, Ben Ren," he flings his arm around Ben's neck and pulls him along. He witnesses his mother's smile, only half-heartedly hidden behind her hand. He is glad to see the smile even if it is at his own expense.

As they move down the hall, with deft fingers and years of steadfast training in the Force, Ben takes the flower crown and places it upon Dameron's head instead. He is more subtle than Rey, and Dameron cannot sense the Force. He wonders if anyone will tell the pilot outright or if they'll just let him keep on?

* * *

He and Rey are heading back to their home when he first feels it. Like a voice calling out to him through smoke and fog, in a cavern echoing off the walls, a voice that is familiar but he has forgotten it, knows he shouldn't have. It is a silent nudge in the Force.

Rey stills and turns to him, "What is that?"

Ben looks at her with trepidation. And things had been going so well.

"Rey," he takes her hands and marvels for a moment at the warmth that seeps into his from hers, from him to her. "I will need to ask for your trust."

"I trust you, Ben Organa." She smiles even though he can taste her…it's not fear…apprehension at the back of his throat.

"I need you to bring me my lightsaber." Her eyes widen and he rushes to say, "I won't need to use it, probably, but I need it."

"Ben," she bits her lip and he wants to sooth the reddened flesh. "I…It…"

"It's alright, Rey," he brings one hand to her cheek and he holds her gaze unflinchingly. "I swear to you: I will return my saber to you for keeping once its purpose has been fulfilled."

Her hazel eyes flick between his dark ones before she nods.

"Meet me at landing dock 4A."

She runs off while Ben turns his back on her, diverts his focus so that he doesn't find out where she is stashing his weapon. Trust is so fragile and yet forges them together. She hadn't asked _why_ , and he will not forget her faith in him. To distract himself further he finds Capt. Connix who also manages comms (she does so much for the Resistance) and gets her to do something she may not like as well.

An hour later the base is in madness. The nudge in the Force is now a storm on the horizon. As Rey stands to meet him, his saber held out between them, Ben smiles.

He takes it, clips it to his belt, and holds out his hand to her. As she takes it, she smiles back.

They stand together, his mother slightly behind him. Every resistance member has a blaster trained on the Firespray-61-class Interceptor. A newer, sleeker model than the famous _Slave 1_ and a favorite by most bounty hunters in general, this ship was meant for quick and easy transport, carrying no more than two passengers and a storage hold for cargo. This one is tagged in bright blue and faded green but the name has been burned off.

So, taken to theft have they now?

"Ben," Rey looks formidable as the Force pulses around them, but her voice is quiet and for him alone as it shivers with nerves. "What is happening?"

"Some old friends have come to visit." He turns to her, brushes her hair away from her face. "I wanted to keep you happy, but my sins cannot stay buried forever."

She shakes her head, "You're atoning for that. You don't have to suffer." With a look back to the Firespray, she vows, "I won't let anyone hurt you."

He turns back to the ship as well. "It is not them you need to worry about. They will never harm me. It is our Way." Her eyes gaze up at him with alarm. "It is _them_ ," his eyes flick to the trigger happy Rebels, "that will turn on me. And for good reason."

She stands straighter, wraps the Force around her like a cloak, and grips his hand tightly. "I won't let anyone hurt you." Force-Echoes thread through the words.

Oh, his sweet, strong girl.

He focuses back on the ship as the main doors open, the pressurized air released. Two figures enveloped in black armor emerge, with quick strides and sure movements they march straight to Ben and Rey.

The first is lithe and slight at first glance. A woman, with leather boots and trousers without a scratch or scuff to them, her chestplate covers her from the tops of her thighs to flare out at her chest with small, winged shoulder guards. Two polyfiber straps seal a reinforced weather-resistant cape that flows freely around her knees. Leather incases her arms in the same durable fabric as her legs and long gloves cover her hands and forearms – weighted gloves that pack a serious punch. Her mask is of a Firefly design – a backwater tribal people in the Outer Rim that worship the insects of the namesake. There are vents in the forehead and a specialized mouth guard in silver to split the black of the mask into a fake grin that Ben knows unsettles her opponents. The slightly bulbous earpieces are designed for different sound frequencies. She could track anything that made a noise.

The second individual is tall, built to run fast and for long distances. His boots are suppler than the first figure, softer, making no sound as they disembarked together. His pants are of a sleeker, less ostentatious material that equally did not swish or otherwise give away his movements. True to their code, he does adorn a dramatic, Brezak-skin coat that flares down to his ankles – stained black of course. A mesh armored vest covers his chest and back, leaving the Brezak-skin to defend his arms. The same quiet fabric of his pants covers his hands in utilitarian gloves, not weighted like the woman's. A weather-resistant half-cape drapes his right shoulder, leaving his dominant left side free. His helmet is less pristine than the matted black of the first figure. It is scratched and faded, the original black now a dusted gray that absorbs all light. The eye port visor is a thin strip of polyglass tinted to avoid damage from the sun, and adjustable to any kind of outside lighting, no matter how many suns or moons there are, or none at all. The mouth piece looks to be a set of bars locking his mouth shut.

Just like the woman's barbaric origins of her bug-like mask his helmethad not been this man's decision to make.

As the two individuals make their way ever closer, Dameron calls out to them. "You will cease moving, put your weapons down, and put your hands behind your head." His voice is clear and shows no signs of the real fear the commander feels at the very sight of who these people are.

Although they are rarely splattered across Hux's propaganda, anyone could point out a Knight of Ren if they knew what to look for.

They don't even glance his way nor hesitate in their stride.

Suddenly they stand before Ben, and he does not need masks to know what is about to happen next. It is their way.

Flinging out their capes and coats each one take a knee, setting their weapons aside, slam their fists, their arms crossed, against their chests, before slamming their hands, palms flat, against the duracret of the landing pad. The noises are loud as by design. And the field is deathly still, unnaturally quiet.

"Master Ren," the woman said, "We have followed you as is our Way."


	8. Chapter 8

Vice Admiral Teek is not pleased. She has never seen his face so pale.

Commander D'Acy turns on Leia when Ben just stands there, demanding she take action.

Commander Crossix sits as far away from Ben as possible with a severe disapproving frown, silently fuming.

Major Kalonia is pacing as she watches Ben with a look of distrust Rey has never seen on the doctor's face before. Her hands wring against her stomach.

Lieutenant Shoveks is listing statistics and facts, details and accounts, witness testimonies, and even death tolls throughout the galaxies.

General Ematt stands beside Leia gesturing with his hands as he seems to gently try to stop Commander D'Acy from yelling at the leader of the Resistance.

Poe and Kaydie stand beside Rey in a corner of the room. None of them say anything in their little corner.

Rey never had a lot of friends.

She had the Mames when she was young. And when she turned twelve she and two other scavengers had banded together because no one survived that young alone. It had been a business transaction more than a family, but they had worked together, had lived together for a few years before both managed to move off world. Rey had stayed behind, waiting for a family that never came for her.

By then, she was entirely capable of taking care of herself.

There was the old woman Rey sometimes worked with now and again. Rey would scavenge the materials and the old woman would clean them.

She had never asked for her name…

Now, now she had many friends. Finn, Poe, Rose, Kaydel Ko (who Rey and Rose called Kaydie), and of course she had Leia. She wasn't quite a friend, oh no, Leia was so much more than a friend. She was special and the bond they shared was special.

And among them all…there was Ben.

He was special, like Leia, but more than Leia. She wasn't sure how he was more, if maybe the Bond between them made it so or if it was just Ben. Regardless she did have the Bond and she had Ben. They had grown so much in the last six months. At the beginning she thought she knew everything right for Ben, what he needed.

She had learned pretty quickly that she couldn't possibly know anything without _talking_ to Ben. The Bond was special, it was even _magical_ at times, but it didn't replace actually saying what was on her mind or asking him about his fears. It was a constant hum in her chest, warm and sweet and reassuring in its consistency. Yet, it didn't tell her why he was upset or what made him angry.

After six months of spending nights and days and all the time between they could spare talking about their pasts, their hopes, their fears, and anything else they could let out and share and trust the other with, well, Rey would say she was closer to no one than she was with Ben.

And now?

Oh, now, she feels helpless as Ben stands once more before the Council. He stands strong, a pillar against a sandstorm, as the Council rages against him.

His eyes flick to hers and he takes a deep breathe. The room slowly silences as they notice the movement. They wait to hear what he has to say.

Rey wishes she could sweep Ben up and away from this heavy, hot room and away from these wild, mad people.

"This ought to be good," Poe mutters under his breath.

"Give him a chance. He has surprised all of us." Kaydie snaps just as quietly.

"Ofira Ren and Ugo Ren wish to defect and join the Resistance." Ben's voice is level, sure, strong.

"No!" Vice Admiral Teek slams his hands on the table. "One Knight is enough! These animals need to be locked up!"

"You did not do so with Finn," he gestures at the man who stands slightly behind Ben. Rey noted Finn's choice in placement since he didn't actually have a seat at the Council just yet and served more in a consultant role. Here and now, he is on the side of the room Ben chooses.

"You threatened to do so with me, until I proved my unimaginable worth." He doesn't raise his voice, doesn't lean over the table in challenge to Teek. He only stands strong and unshakable against the Council's torrent.

"We have allowed too much!" Commander D'Acy snaps in a sharp tone Rey has never heard from the usually kind-eyed woman. "This cannot be our policy, let in First Order strays whenever they show up on our door!"

"Exactly," Teek booms. "Who's to say these monsters won't turn on us the first chance they get?"

"I say," Ben takes one step closer, and as one every person in the room tenses, those closer to Ben move away. Only Rey keeps her cool. He won't hurt anyone. She _knows_ this. "The Knights of Ren do not answer to the First Order."

"Oh?" Crossix scoffs and sneers as he wipes the perspiration from his forehead. "Then explain what they and _you_ have been doing for the last ten years?"

"The Knights of Ren followed the Force. We followed Snoke because he led us to believe he was the living embodiment of the Force."

"And what? You just suddenly decided he wasn't anymore when you killed him?" Teek asks, but his tone is demanding.

Ben's dark eyes meet and lock with Rey's. "I didn't suddenly decide anything. My path was made clear and I realized Snoke wasn't what I thought he was."

The room grows even warmer as Rey tries to hide her smile. They've made such progress, together.

Crossix grunts, D'Acy makes a simpering sound of disagreement, Major Kalonia picks up her pacing again as she looks between the two of them, and Teek's face is downright ugly.

"And these other Knights, they agree with your new path?" he spits the words out and Rey feels embarrassed he saw her silent exchange with Ben.

"It does not matter if they agree with me. We were not always in agreement with Snoke at times." That causes Major Kalonia to take her seat and she folds her hands neatly in front of her. Poe and Kaydie also lean slightly forward as if catching sight of something intriguing. "It is the Knight's Way to follow their Master. I am the Master of the Knights of Ren. Ofira Ren and Ugo Ren have chosen to follow the Way and thus they will follow me."

"Not the Resistance?" it is Leia who asks this. After all the hostility in the room, her inquiry sounds almost sweet in the air. But the General is formidable and thinking of the dangers inviting the Knights may cause.

"I stand with the Resistance," Ben's eyes flick once more to Rey before he addresses his mother. "They will stand with you as well, General."

General Ematt also appears to have calmed. "Can we expect the other Knights to follow…the Way?"

Ben takes a moment to ponder this. "I don't know."

With another violent sound Teek snarls, "Some Master you are."

"With Snoke dead one of the Knights may try to fill the vacuum in the Force."

"How bad can that be?" Poe smirks with a shrug, further easing tension in his natural way. "No one can be as bad as Snoke."

"General Hux, without Snoke's restraint, has proven to be a tenacious and ruthless adversary these last few months," Ben says. "Without Snoke's leadership, and while I am…out of the picture, perhaps one of the Knights will dare to take Snoke's place." He shrugs but it doesn't have the same carefree lift when Poe does it. "I cannot tell you what the other Knights will do. I can only say emphatically that Ofira Ren and Ugo Ren are with me, and by extension the Resistance."

"Maybe," Poe continues to grin, "the other Knights will duke it out over top boss and kill each other."

"Maybe," with a nod Ben concedes the point.

"Or maybe," Teek's face is gaining color once more, "They will all come to kill us! These two found us, how easy would it be for the others?"

When Ben doesn't immediately speak the room erupts in chaos. Leia and Ematt try to be voices of reason, Poe and Finn situate themselves between Ben and Teek as Crossix removes himself from his seat to join the fray. Kaydie slightly shields Rey as if the noise alone will assault her.

 _Ben,_ she coaxes across the humming wire connecting them. _Are you alright_?

He brings his head up from his whirling thoughts to meet her eyes. _What do you mean?_

 _Forget what everyone is saying for now. Are you…glad your Knights are here?_

One of those sweet, small smiles flickers across his features for her to see before he has hidden it away from prying eyes. _It is good to know they are alive. I'm glad it is Ofira Ren and Ugo Ren. We got along well._

She smiles back. _I'm happy for you_.

Without movement he peers around the room. _You are alone in that regard._

 _We are, I suppose_. That causes another little smile. _Would the other Knights be able to find us?_

The wire vibrates on a sigh in her mind, echoing through her chest. He closes his eyes and breaths deeply. _In theory, yes. Perhaps Ofira Ren and Ugo Ren found us through the Force, when I used the Dark Side against Teek so long ago. They must have pinpointed our location immediately. But that kind of power it…lingers. The others might be just behind them._

Her smile vanishes. _Can we trust any of the other Knights?_

He meets her gaze once more. _At one time I wouldn't have hesitated to tell you yes. Now though, I honestly do not know._ There is such weighted sadness in his words.

 _Would,_ she hesitates for a moment to gather her thoughts. _Would your Knights know? Ofira or Ugo?_

Ben blinks once, a slow and forced gesture before a grin breaks out across his features. _Oh Rey, you're brilliant!_

Together they leave the Council behind as Leia slips out the door behind them at the last second.

"Ben, what's going on?"

"It was Rey's idea." He's still grinning and she can't stop looking at him.

"What was?" Leia demands.

"Come along, Mother. Come meet the Knights of Ren."

* * *

Ofira Ren and Ugo Ren are placed in a separate room, with no windows and the one door. It is pretty much a duracrete box, perhaps a storage room at one point. Each Knight is kneeling in the center of the room, their hands on their knees and eyes closed when Ben opens the door and lets himself in.

They have guards at each end of the hall but no one near the door. Rey isn't sure if Ben suggested it because he didn't want to make his Knights feel as if they were prisoners, or if he thought he Knights would use a mind trick on them. She chooses to believe the former.

As the three of them file in the Knights rise gracefully to stand before Ben, Leia, and Rey.

"Master Ren," the woman addresses Ben as she and the man bow in unison. When they were led here, Rey had asked they remove their headgear, get comfortable. She had taken her duties as warden over the First Order officers seriously and she assumed that role with the Knights as well.

Unfortunately they seem to have not done anything more than knelt and waited.

Ben nods back before gesturing to each woman next to him, "My mother, General Leia Organa. And Rey of Jakku," she has no fancy titles and although that had never once bothered her before, now she feels she needs to be more than what she was if she is going to stand beside Ben Organa, Master of the Knights of Ren.

They show no sign of surprise to Ben's mother and the leader of the Resistance being one and the same. Their opacity unnerves her, their masks a mockery of monsters. Creatures.

"Greetings Leia Organa," the Knights bow their heads once more. "And Rey, the slayer of Supreme Leader Snoke." The woman says these things with a deadpanned tone.

"Oh!" she blushes. They never really got around to discussing that lie; she glances quickly up at Ben and is surprised to find a smirk gracing his lips. For now she keeps quiet, but she does let her unease bleed through the wire connecting them.

Ben clasps his hands behind his back. "Knights of Ren, remove your masks. There is no need for such things here."

As one both individuals release the hissing seals of their helmets and toss the articles to the side, discarding them without a second thought.

Her first impression is that these two people are _beautiful_.

The man, standing as tall as the woman at six feet, appears so…warm. He is pale with a healthy pink tone to his skin. His golden brown hair is swept back and cropped close at his neck and ears. Thick eyebrows curve over thick lashes that embrace honey eyes. His nose is strong and straight, almost severe but the rest of his face is…inviting, welcoming, _attractive_. His built is lean, even with all the armor and his scaled black coat.

The woman – she is the most gorgeous creature Rey has ever seen. Tall and willowy, lithe, slender but strong. Her skin is a pale, pearl grey. Her hair so, so long, thin and wispy, tied at a loose tail, the tip reaching to her hips and white – she had never seen a human with white hair before. Some of her under length is ash brown, like her shapely brows that tilt in slightly. Iced blue eyes stare unwaveringly at Ben, surrounded in short dark lashes. Her nose is almost cute in the small rounded shape of it, but that is the only "cute" thing about her. Lips, the color of snow covered berries, full, and soft are set in a straight line, not frowning, per say, but not quite neutral either.

Rey feels an unreasonable surge to flee. She couldn't stand beside such beautiful people. She, the sand rat! Her hand comes up and combs slightly through her hair, catching on a snag and she feels her cheeks flame.

"It has been some time since I have seen either of your faces. You have changed Ofira Ren; Ugo Ren, hardly at all." Ben's voice removes her from her self-conscious folly.

"Indeed." For the first time the man speaks. His voice is rich and smooth, warm just like his features.

Ben grinned widely, "Ugo Ren!" he takes two steps and reaches out one hand. Ugo Ren takes it in a strange grasp Rey didn't understand. Instead of taking their hands as she has seen before when Poe went around greeting his crew, these men take one another's shoulders, not an embrace and do no more than stand there like that. And yet, it feels welcoming, and somewhat intimate to witness.

For a few moments they stand there, Ben grinning while Ugo offers a gentle curve of his lips, a shadow of a smile, as if he forgot how to do it. Then Ben steps back and takes Ofira's shoulder in the same way. And she greets him in return.

"I am correct to assume you are free as well?" He is still grinning like…well…Rey thinks he looks a little like Poe. He's warm, gentle, welcoming even with his Knights.

Ofira gentles, her features do not change, her lips do not smile and her brows do now smooth out, but there is something in the way her body relaxes that gentles her in a way. "Yes, Master Ren. We are free."

"If I may ask," Leia steps slightly forward but not intruding on this rare occasion to see her son so…tender. "What exactly are you free from?"

Ofira looks to Ben, then Ugo. Ben answers. "Snoke made sure to assert his dominion over his Knights. Each of us were enslaved to him in a way."

"Enslaved?" Rey doesn't meant to interrupt. But the very thought of Snoke _owning_ Ben frightens her. No matter he is good and dead now.

Ben's smile slowly falls away as he comes back to her and takes one of her hands. "Yes, Snoke made sure we could never turn against him, kept us exactly where he wanted us."

Her free hand comes up and brushes his wild hair away from his face. "What did he do to you?"

It is a small thing, hardly worth noticing, but she does notice. Ben flinches.

"He took something from each of us," Ugo interjects. Did he notice Ben's flinch? Is he coming to his rescue? Rey immediately likes the Knight.

"What did he take?" Leia asks the man.

"From myself, he took my voice. I could not speak out, could not ask for help." Rey's stomach flees the room as she grips Ben's hand tighter. "I am Lorrdian." Leia gasps but at Rey's confusion he continues. "A long time ago, my people had been enslaved and were threatened with death if they ever spoke. Snoke wanted me…to relive the suffering of my ancestors."

By the end of his tale, Ugo seems to deflate and Rey has attached herself to Ben's arm. She could not stop the horror from showing on her face. Ben softly strokes her hand gripping his shirt sleeve.

"That is…barbaric," Leia's strong voice fills the void. Her kind, dark eyes skim to Ben before she looks to Ofira. "And I can assume that he was equally barbaric to you, my dear?"

She tenses, a beautiful statue, made of glass, capable of shattering at any moment.

"No," Leia holds up a hand. "No need to spill your guts to me today. We are here to discuss what kind of exposure we can expect from the First Order with you here."

Orfira and Ugo stand straighter. "That will not be a problem," the woman says.

"Can you confirm that for me?"

"I can. I found Ben through the Force, with Farseeing, a talent only I have exhibited among the Knights of Ren."

Ben nodded, "I thought so. I only needed validation." He turns to his mother. "Ofira Ren can see things in the future but also far into the galaxy. She found me that way. Not by anything I did or anything the other Knights could use to track me."

"Alright," she concedes, "we are in no immediate danger, no more so than usual anyway," the last is a mutter under her breath. "What about the possibility of anyone tracking you two?"

Ugo answers with a very mild shift in his body. "We were very careful."

"Would the others," Ben swallows his first inquiry before he tries again. "How are the other Knights?"

Ofira and Ugo share a look before the woman says, "The others may not join you, Master Ren. Do not expect them any time soon."

So close to him, Rey feels Ben tense as his eyes darken. "Where is your basis for belief, Ofira Ren?"

Ugo's eyebrow twitch and Ofira nods as if he said something to her. "The others…Nyack…they follow Derex Ren now."

"Ben?" she doesn't like the way he's baring his teeth, his hand not touching hers clenching and popping.

"Why would they follow Derex Ren?"

Again, Ofira nodded to Ugo even though he did not say anything. "He has joined forces with General Hux, Master Ren. He means to be Master to the Knights of Ren."

For the first time she feels completely unmoored when Ben removes himself from her. He walks to the end of the small room, pacing that side, no longer looking at her, and she feels…helpless. It is not a good feeling.

"Ben," she calls but he does not look her way.

"You all knew when Snoke passed." He addresses his Knights.

"It was immediate," Ugo confessed. "One moment the vice-like grip was there, and then it wasn't."

With a nod he continued, "It must have been the same for the others. They would have known. Derex Ren, though?" he finally stops but looks to Ofira. "I thought for sure it would have been-"

"Derex Ren got there first." She confirms for him.

Another snarl, more pacing. He's like a caged neru. Rey can't stand it. She rushes forward, past the Knights and stands in front of him.

"Ben!" she doesn't mean to shout but watching him act like this wild thing infects her with the same madness. "What can I do? What do you need?"

He stops. All the crackling energy zapping through the Bond, the bubbling, choking feeling of losing control stills. One hand presses against her cheek, his eyes flick to both of hers, and then all the breath he holds in his lungs exhales in one deep sigh. He deflates and folds slightly into her. She meets him halfway, her arms wrapping protectively around his back as her forehead meets his.

For one blessed moment it is only them. She cherishes these moments.

A smile decorates his strong features as he pulls back to look at her. "Right. Alright." He honors her with a nod before he slips his hand into hers and faces his Knights once more. Ofira's pale eyes are wide with unrestraint surprise. Ugo looks unfazed but for a slight parting of his lips.

Leia smiles gently, unknowingly and with such a deep well of kindness that Rey feels comfortable enough, even among strangers, to lean slightly into Ben.

"The base is secure for now. But we will reestablish an emergency protocol with Captain Connix." She likes when he slips right into this assertive, confident persona. "General Organa, if you second my diagnosis that the Knight pose no threat to the Resistance and may therefore work to absolve themselves of any pass crimes while under the rule of Snoke by working with the Council and the Resistance to bring down the First Order?"

The older woman huffs, "I wouldn't put it all in such a long-winded, flowery way, but yes I agree. They pose no threat to us and with the appropriate guidance they may start their atonement."

"Appropriate guidance?"

She smiles at her son's question before her kind eyes land on Rey. "I leave them to your care."

"Wait! What?"

* * *

"The Knights of Ren are _here_?" Inigo is a mixture of delightful surprise, restraint excitement, and an odd amount of concern for Rey. They are on their daily walk. All of the officers are given the option to take time outside. Only General Munin is allowed beyond the fenced in, duracrete pavement that doesn't give away anything specific about the base's activities.

However, Rey and Inigo go slightly into the forest and near her and Ben's clearing. She doesn't take them to the clearing, although she doesn't really know why. It's just…special to her.

They are sitting on a large flat rock that overlooks a small river edge with thousands of bulbous wildflowers that look like fluffy berries in a variety of colors from deep purple to florescent, neon orange to the shocking bright red like blots of blood. In the face of humidity and sun and warmth, Inigo has forgone her officer's coat and sits in her starched, black pants and grey under armor shirt. After they are settled she even sets her shiny boots to the side.

Her springy hair shines in the sun as her copper eyes glitter at Rey.

"I've only met a Knight once," there's longing in her tone.

Rey's eyes trace the berry flowers. "They are very…polite." She isn't sure what she's allowed to tell Inigo. Yesterday, after the exhaustion of convincing the Council to let the two Knights into Rey's custody, she and Ben spoke with the Knights for hours about where they would be the most help and even about their lessons on the Force.

They didn't offer their opinions of this neutral theme of the Force, or how they felt about anything at all.

"We used to talk about them all the time in the Academy." Inigo smirks; she never really expresses anything more than that sarcastic curve of one side of her mouth. "Of course at that time they were new. They were on the First Order Broadcast all the time for a few years. Just pictures of them leading Stormtroopers counterattacking against planets refusing to join the Order. Sometimes we got a live feed, seeing them use the Force with our very eyes."

"You said you met a Knight once, what for?"

"Oh! You have to be resilient to mind attacks as a General in the Fleet. Before you are given your Dreadnaught."

"What does that mean? Be resilient?"

Her smirk vanishes. "Well, the only way to learn resiliency is to practice it. A Knight had to file through my mind and I had to hide certain things from the Knight. It's a timed test. Eventually they always find the secrets we're told to protect. Those with the best test scores are sent to a separate facility for general candidates."

Rey cannot keep the horror from her face. "Oh Force! That's terrible!"

Inigo finally looks at Rey, "What? No, it was protocol."

With a frown she asks the strong woman, "What if they filed through one of your sister's minds?"

A darkness roams over Inigo's face, her eyes pinpricks of bright fire. "I would murder whoever hurts my sisters. They are my reason for everything I do." With a sigh she leans back and the darkness retreats. "You don't understand, Rey of Jakku. It is important that the Generals of the First Order are superior to their subordinates in every way. We are in charge of all aspects of our Dreadnaught. Every personnel, every component, every function; I must answer to all of it. It is not a job for anyone."

For a long time they say nothing, just soak up the sun and the breeze and the rustle of the tuffs of flowers. Finally Inigo is the one who pulls on her boots and stands to head back to the base.

Rey stands as well but she is filled with such a melancholy.

"Rey of Jakku," Inigo calls to her from just off the flat stone. "Do you know anything about Solia?"

Rey breaks from her thoughts and begins to walk with Inigo again. "Solia?" She knows it's a Core World, small by comparison, but it's also where Ben plans to go to meet with a sponsor of the First Order he intends to turn. She can't tell Inigo that though.

Inigo nods, "Have you heard anything about it?"

She connects the dots quickly. "Is that where you're from?"

"After I joined the Order, my sisters were put into a Universal Home – it's a place for parentless children to live. The Order provides for them; feeds them, clothes them, educates them. I wasn't allowed to talk to them while at the Academy. I get messages from my middle sister every now and then and last I heard all of them were applying to the Order Academy as well."

There is obvious pride in her tone. Rey can easily tell Inigo cares very much about her sisters.

"What are their names?"

"Yelena is the oldest; she's about twenty nine now. Akari is twenty seven; she's the one who keeps me updated sporadically. And little Elsu, she's only twenty two." That same smirk quirks one side of her mouth as her eyes shine. "The last time I saw them I was seventeen and they were ten, eight, and little Elsu was only three. I would like to hear how they're doing."

"I could ask our communications officer to look into it." Rey pats Inigo's shoulder. Ben's planning a trip that way. She could ask him to even get a face to face with them if he could.

Inigo eyes Rey. "You wouldn't ask for anything, would you? I know your people think we don't know anything but every officer has access codes, key login information; we aren't worthless. Yet, no one has asked for anything. And if you found my sisters, you wouldn't hold that information over me?"

"Of course not!" she doesn't mean to grow affronted by Inigo's words. They grew up quite similarly and yet their view of the world is vastly different.

With a slight chuckle the smirk returns as she pats Rey's shoulder back. "Thank you. Genuinely, thank you."

As the base grows into view Inigo changes the subject. "I have to wonder why the Knights have suddenly joined your cause."

Rey bites her lip. The officers don't know about Ben. The Stormtroopers do only because Ben spoke to them to help with the transition of no longer wearing their helmets. But it never came up naturally in conversation. Now…now however…

"B-Kylo Ren has deserted the First Order." She answers without hesitation. All of the First Order might know he's left the throne room with her so long ago. This isn't a secret.

Inigo halts. Her copper hair swirls in the wind as her copper eyes widen. "What?"

She nods, "He killed the Supreme Leader to save me and then left with me."

"Why?"

A blush spreads across her cheeks and she feels flush. "I…I never asked why…I mean…I was being tortured and…" she bites her lip to stop her stuttering. Why had she never asked? She always thought he did it because it was the right thing to do. But he had once said he didn't believe in the Resistance. So…why had he killed Snoke?

"Oh," Inigo's smirk returns as her eyes glitter like a loth cat with a field mouse. "I see." She continues to walk back to her cell.

She doesn't ask what Inigo sees. Frankly, she gets the feeling she doesn't want to know what she thinks she sees.

* * *

She walking into the hanger, hoping to get some work done in her garage before dinner but there's a bit of a commotion surrounding one of the many View Screens, or VS, that used to play updates, slideshows, and FO propaganda back when this old research facility had been operational. Recently, it plays unbiased news channels of the FO's heinous crimes as well as some motivational videos from Leia or General Ematt or even thank yous from their allies.

Right now there's static as Poe seems to be adjusting a few wires behind the screen.

"What's going on?" Rey asks Kaydie. She's frowning at Poe's fumbling attempts to remove the static.

"That ginger, FO bastard showed up on all frequencies, claiming that two of the Knights of Ren have defected. He said there was a videofeed proving their treason and he's going to broadcast it to the Known." There is a snarl in her throat as she glances toward Rey.

"And… _that_?" She gestures to Poe as he curses singed fingers.

Kaydie snorts, "The feed just blacked out. We tried every channel. Poe thought it was the screen itself and he's trying to link into other frequencies. But everything is the same: just a black screen."

With a cry of victory Poe shoves a wire into a slot and the static cuts off into just as Kaydie described, a black screen.

"Kriff!" Poe pulls away from the VS and stands beside Rey and Kaydie. "I guess we just have to…wait." As if it were the worst fate imaginable, Poe shakes his head.

"Did he say…what this feed was?"

Kaydie shrugs, "Nope. He just said he was going to play it at 1700: Galactic Standard Time."

Rey glances at the digital clock hanging on a wall. "Well we don't have long to wait." Just a few more minutes. In a lower voice for her two companions only she asks, "Where's Ben?"

"He'll come by with his guard dogs soon." Poe shrugs with a grin but his voice is just as quiet.

"Guard dogs?"

"He means," Kaydie glares at Poe before turning her softened gaze back to Rey, "the three of them have been inseparable since yesterday."

"Yeah, yeah," the Best Pilot waves the captain off. "That's what I meant. Anyway, they were with General Leia last I saw, probably hashing out some details about schedules, like when to feed them and when they'll be let outside."

"Don't do that," Rey commands, the Force slipping slightly into her voice – not compulsion, only enforcing her voice with a taste of power.

"Do what?"

"Don't talk about them like they're less than human."

"Rey," he honestly looks perplexed, "I was only kidding."

"Still, you shouldn't make jokes like that." She did some research about Ugo's people. What he said about his ancestors hit her deeply and she read every historical archive she could get her fingers on about Lorrdians – classified as "Near-human" because of their culture. She had clumsily investigated Ofira's origins as well based on only her features. She isn't sure but she thinks she might be Vahla…a "Near-human" she's never heard of before.

The way Poe speaks of them…it makes her severely uncomfortable. "Don't do it, please."

"Sure, Rey," he puts a hand on her shoulder and meets her eye. "Whatever you say."

"Thank you."

The black screen lets out a low bell tone to indicate FO propaganda is coming and for everyone to stay tuned. General Hux, now addressing himself as Grand Marshal Artimage Hux of the First Order (a mouthful of a title if anyone were to ask Rey) fills the screen. He speaks in long, flowery statements of grander and might. A red flag blows behind him on an artificial backface of the First Order insignia that always made Rey think of a gaping maw surrounded by needlelike teeth.

Finally he gets to what he promised visual proof of treason by a Knight of Ren.

The screen flicks to a room displayed through the eye of a security camera nestled in a ceiling corner. The walls are thick, unadorned duracrete and the floor is one entire slab of metal grating, like one would find in the bowels of a dreadnaught carcass on Jakku. But what catches everyone's eye is the thin, rake-thin, _bone-thin_ boy trussed up like a hunk of meat by his arms to chains connected to a pulley system in the ceiling. His feet don't even touch the floor. The picture is in the same blue tone of most security feeds and therefore it's impossible to discern any key features about the boy.

He has darkish hair…not white or blonde and he is pale, very pale. And so thin, Rey grabs hold of her stomach, years of fear and reality and pain and _starving_ slice through her. Tears already prick at her eyes.

A man walks into the room from the one door. He enters at the boy's back, and he's dragging something with him, something like a sword that makes a chilling cold sound of metal on metal. The man wears all dark colors, not black because even in blue tone black is black. If she had never met someone like the man (or even the man himself) she would have never known.

But she does know; she knows very well that the man behind the chained boy is in full-body, red armor. Every aspect, including his face, is covered. And the thing he dragged in with him…an eletro-chain whip. She knows this weapon; she almost succumbed to it at one point in her great battle with Ben.

After she first saw Ben's marred back so many months ago, Rey begun looking into the Praetorian Guard more and more through the holonet. Seeking as much knowledge as possible, she learned that some of the scars she wasn't able to identify before were from the ultrasonic generated weapons the Praetorian Guard favored, creating a high frequency vibration. The electro-chain whip pulsed with the same vibration but with actual wires to send the frequency throughout the entire weapon.

As if he were proving her point, the man disengaged the sword into a snake of terrible pain and destruction. The boy flinches at the sound; he tries to look behind him, tries to turn and face this terror head-on or at the very least see it coming. But he can't move.

So he begs.

"No, please! Please don't! Please!" he's screaming and sobbing. "I'll be good! I'll be good!"

Tears do fall down Rey's cheeks as her hands cover her mouth, but she isn't entirely aware of her body. All she can see, all she knows is this poor boy.

The Praetorian doesn't care.

He strikes the boy in an X pattern then stops to hear the boy wail in agony. After an age, he strikes again, thrice more.

"Stop! Stop! Don't! I'm sorry!"

Then he goes at him with the tenacity and single-minded focus of a droid. He doesn't stop to hear the incomprehensible screams now. The boy is beyond human language. He can only shriek, writhe, weep.

Rey doesn't understand time anymore. All she knows is that the man does not stop and the boy's voice shrivels into moans and whimpers and sniffles as he's beaten dreadfully.

Then he stops and just leaves the boy bound and bleeding. The feed picks up his moaning, his groaning howls, and even the tiny whine as his body shudders. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

After another undetermined amount of time, the grate below his feet groans as it is pulled in two and below the bright blue of a pool is displayed. A shuddering breath from the boy proves that the pool must be freezing, as clouds of breath tremble in front of the boy's face. Without any warning, the boy is unceremoniously dropped into the water.

Rey gasps, as do others.

"What in the nine hells?" Poe whispers under his breath.

He doesn't resurface. She can't even see him struggle. The bright blue stains with something dark but still she doesn't see the boy.

The one door opens and a long shadow spills into the room. Finally, _finally_ a creature walks in.

He is eight feet tall, walking with measured steps as if in no hurry. His robes flow and trail around him.

 _Snoke_.

Bright, hot fury engulfs Rey as she actually growls low in her throat.

With a lofty wave of his hand, Snoke uses the Force to pull the boy from the pool. Another condescending flick of his wrist and the boy is laid gently onto the grate. He doesn't even move, not even to purge any water. The creature leans over the boy and Rey desperately wants to jump into the feed and kill Snoke herself.

"There now, Ugo Ren," Snoke says in his gravelly, depraved voice. "You are _saved_. _I_ have saved you."

The boy shakes once, _finally_ coughs up what almost killed him before he rolls over, and with his wrists still chained he pushes himself feebly up to kneel in front of Snoke, shivering and shaking. And the creature, the real monster, takes Ugo's chin in one, cold hand.

In a voice so fragile Rey can feel her own heart breaking she hears the boy utter, "Thank you Supreme Leader."

No one gets the chance to hear Hux spout his lies, how he paints the actions of Ugo Ren as traitorous to a man who "saved" him. A crack forks up and across the VS just as the earth shakes. The metal in the hanger shivers and groans. The Force cries out in sorrow.

Everyone turns to the hanger bay door where Ben stands tall with Ofira and Ugo flanking each side. Ben's hand is out, signally himself as the one to silence the VS even as Hux's self spouts poison to the masses. Ofira's arms are loose at her sides but her long hair whips wildly in a Force gathered wind that rattles the structure. Ugo is ash gray and still as a gravestone.

She has a chance, just one, to breathe, to scavenge for words that will help, but she hesitates because nothing she says will help. And her chance is gone.

Ugo folds in on himself, his arms across his chest as his hands press against his back. He screams and the Force implodes. The metal walls nearest to the three blow out, ripped away as if they were made of nothing more than moth-eaten fabric. Ofira's eyes nearly glow silver and she shoves the nearest people away, sending them into the people behind them, and those behind them until nearly everyone is on their backs or bellies.

"You think that is entertaining?" She yells into the hanger, her voice echoing naturally.

Ben flings out one hand, guarding Ofira or stopping her from advancing and a retired X-Wing explodes in a firey display. "GET OUT!" his voice is saturated in Compulsion and several, more than half, flee as if a horde of Tie-Fighters are gunning them down.

"Ben!" Rey calls over all the _noise_. Ugo's screams have not stopped.

She runs forward without hesitation. Ofira ducks under Ben's arm and tries to engage her.

Poe fires his blaster, three rounds, all three are halted by Ben and Rey evades Ofira's aggressive tackle. The woman tucks and rolls and twist to face her again but Rey doesn't stop.

"DON'T!" Ben holds up a hand at her and she bats the compulsion away like a nuisance. He means to grab for her and she seizes his wrist, twists it one way before bringing her knee up to his solar plex. At his wheeze of pain she lets him go and finally reaches her target.

She grabs hold of Ugo, her arms wrapped around his shoulders, her cheek at his temple. She coos and sighs into his ear. "Shhhhh…I know…I know. He hurt you. That's not OK. But he's dead. He's _gone_. He will _never_ hurt you again, Ugo."

One hand brushes his hair from his face and together they fall into one another to their knees. The screams die down into gut-wrenching, soul-raking sobs. Tears spill down onto her shoulder and still she strokes him, holds him.

Her eyes flick up to Ben's. He appears recovered now. "What's his real name?"

"Aarav," he answers in a growl as he kneels beside her.

"Aarav," Rey calls softly. "You're safe here. I've got you. Ben won't let anyone hurt you." Her eyes catch his once more.

Ben understands. He reaches out and takes Aarav's hand from his shoulder and holds it fiercely. "I killed Snoke." His voice is strong and soothing. "He will never hurt anyone ever again." Aarav looks up suddenly, meeting Ben's dark eyes. "He will _never touch_ you again."

At her other side, Ofira kneels with them and presses a hand to Aarav's back. "It's always been us, right?" Still looking at Ben, he nods. "It'll always be us. Knights, brothers, sisters, always."

With one last shudder Aarav closes his eyes and leans into Rey's embrace. With one last heavy sigh he collapses into a deep sleep. For a long moment no one moves, no one speaks. Ofira caresses his back, Ben grips his hand, and Rey combs his hair.

Finally, without a word, they begin to shift. Ben goes to take the man, holding him against him as if he weights nothing. With a grunt he stands and Poe lets off a nervous chuckle.

"You've got some explaining, Ben Ren."

Ofira's lovely lips pull back in a feral snarl. "Do not disrespect our Master like that again. You have no right to disgrace our Way."

"He doesn't know any better," Ben mutters.

"It is no excuse." She turns to Rey and holds out a hand.

She looks to it and to Ben who stands with Aarav but does not move. Oh! He's waiting for her. Even with Ofira's help her knees shake.

Ofira takes her arm; it is a gruff, impersonal assistance but Rey is grateful nonetheless. "You shed tears for Ugo Ren."

"What?" she touches her face and her fingers come away wet. "Oh!" she hadn't realized. With the adrenaline gone all she feels is a dull ache in her chest, a gnawing beast in her stomach.

" _Compassion_ …" Ofira goes on as they follow Ben to the Med Bay. Poe and Kaydie follow behind. "It is foreign to our Way." She had stuttered over the word "foreign" as if she were about to use a different word and changed her mind at the last second. "Your attachment to a man you just met is…worth honoring."

"No, no," Rey rushes to say on reflex. "I'm not worth anything."

"Bantha shit!" the woman counters. "You have my fealty because my Master follows you. Now you have my respect because in the face of three Knights of Ren you did not waver. You will also have my…" she pauses as she weighs her words.

"Friendship?" Rey offers. She hopes for such a thing. She, who never had friends now craves them like she craves the beautiful flowers she collects and tries to preserve.

Ofira looks alarmed at the prospect of such a relationship. "I've…" she looks to Ben's back before lowering her voice. "I have never had a female companion before."

There's a near angry tone to her admission.

"My first one was quite recently as well." She wouldn't say she's particularly close to Kaydie or Rose although she does enjoy their company now and again. "I would be honored if you became my friend."

"Then we are friends," Ofira decides. She is intense in her own way, Rey muses. Her slender fingers gripping her arm lessen somewhat.

Through the Bond she can feel a warm buzz of pleasing contentment from Ben. He wants her to like his Knights, wants them to get along and integrate. That makes sense since they will be working together under her "care" now. But maybe it's more than that.

Ofira had said they were…brothers…sisters…These Knights…they were Ben's family!

She lets him feel her pleasure and her concern for Aarav as well. In answer he gives her a small smile over his shoulder. She shouldn't feel so happy to have his attention after the horror that just took place. Still…she will always take a certain amount of pleasure when she receives one of Ben's smiles.

 **Look! Another one, after only 24 hours and here is another chapter! Please drop a review - it doesn't have to be long. Just tell me what you like, if you're sticking with this story, if you're enjoying my journey! Just let me~~~**


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